Georgian museum radically changes its opinion of Stalin

A MUSEUM that has honoured Josef Stalin in Georgia since 1937 is being altered to exhibit the atrocities that were committed during the Soviet dictator’s rule.

Georgia’s culture minister Nika Rurua said yesterday that his nation, which became independent in 1991, can no longer host a museum “glorifying the Soviet dictator”.

Stalin was born Josef Dzhugashvili in the central Georgian town of Gori in 1879, and the museum opened there in 1937, at the height of purges later dubbed the Great Terror.

The gigantic museum includes the house where Stalin was born and about 47,000 exhibits, including personal belongings and death masks.

He is still revered by many who say he turned a struggling nation into a superpower. Some of his most ardent supporters are still found in Gori.

However, many of Stalin’s victims were ethnic Georgians, including his former Bolshevik Party comrades who witnessed his rise to power in the 1920s.