Joseph Stalin Museum

The Joseph Stalin Museum in Gori, Shida Kartli, is a museum complex dedicated to the life and public career of Joseph Stalin, who was born in the town. The museum complex opened in 1957 and combines a preserved birth house with exhibition spaces and outdoor displays.

On-site highlights include the small timber birth house preserved under a pavilion, exhibition halls with personal items, documents and photographs, and an armoured rail carriage displayed outdoors. The displays focus on biographical material and items associated with Stalin’s time in power.

The museum collections were assembled in the decades after Stalin’s death and the complex was developed as a civic museum and memorial in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The site has been maintained and reorganised over time to reflect changing curatorial approaches.

The museum sits beside the main street in the town of Gori in central Georgia, close to the small railway and road connections that link Gori with other parts of the Shida Kartli region.

• Opening date: Museum complex opened in 1957 and has since been the principal site dedicated to Stalin's life in his hometown.
• Main exhibits: Includes both the preserved birth house and a collection of personal items and vehicles belonging to Stalin.

What to See #

• Birth house: A single-room timber cottage that is preserved as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin and displayed inside a pavilion on the museum grounds.
• Stalin's rail carriage and vehicles: An armoured imperial-style rail carriage and several official vehicles used by Stalin, exhibited on the museum site.
• Museum exhibition rooms: Exhibition halls containing personal effects, documents, photographs and Soviet-era memorabilia assembled after Stalin's death.