Now don't expect a massive history lesson here. There's so much modern history to be unpacked surrounding this one small event that I have zero faith in my ability to correctly and respectfully run through it all here on Hive and in one post. But I'll try to summarise things in a way that it remains readable and interesting to everyone that is like me and likely has very little awareness of, well, anything from this region of the world. We all know of Stalin as a person within history. We all know about his contribution to defeating the Nazi's during the Second World War, as well as his participation in guiding the USSR forward over the span of three decades and leading up to its supposed golden age through the 1950s to the 1980s. But did you know that Stalin was such a fundamental pawn within the distribution of communist ideology throughout much of the world from the very start of the 1900s?
In the early 1900s, within the small residential zone between Avlarbari and Isani in Tbilisi, Georgia, a young Stalin in his mid twenties secretly set out to produce and distribute magazines with communist ideologies and (Russian) anti-Tsar messaging. To be printed within three main languages: Armenian, Georgian, and Russian. A project so secretive that it had several families and friends constantly on the lookout to ensure that nothing was ever discovered or seeming even slightly suspicious as people walked by the building. And at a glance, this is nothing but an old building. A home like many others with a small garden and a well. This operation wasn't just orchestrated by angry individuals within Georgia. It was an operation that had support from Armenians and Russians alike. A mutual effort to speak directly to the people of the neighbouring nations and tell them of the monstrosities and unfairness of living under the control of the Tsars.
Upon entering, we saw a relatively small but wide man that didn't seem all that Georgian, and he happily spoke Russian. I didn't expect to see someone working here that would be heavily against the history that is held here. But that was still a surprise. One man to maintain the whole building, it seemed. And it was already getting a bit late into the day, with about an hour until the place closed. Entry was free, and the curator sat us down and gave us a piece of paper which explained the history briefly in English. Immediately you could tell that this wasn't an ordinary museum, and that the curator definitely was quite fond of the ideology. Later on I'd read reviews on the place to which many would mention this man, sometimes negatively speaking of his clear positive attitude towards communism. That was kind of funny to me. With this he also mentioned that many Chinese citizens attend the location, and that its history is also taught in schools. The location now being of interest to the Chinese population; not all that surprising given China is still a communist nation that shared much of its ideology with the USSR.
The man then proceeded in taking us through a rushed tour of the location, first outside to a well in which he mentioned how people would descend and ascend from it throughout the day, as people would reach the hidden room below to orchestrate the printing operation. How it was eventually discovered as law enforcement had received many hints that something was going on in the house, and one officer chose to burn a piece of paper and drop it into the well, only for it to be sucked into a hidden tunnel. I'm not sure how true that entirely is, it does seem a bit far-fetched and exaggerated for history's sake. You can look down into the well of which is about 17 metres deep, and you genuinely wouldn't believe that there's anything particularly strange about it. Throughout the shifts people would keep lookout and ensure nobody was seen entering or exiting. Primarily with two women on the lookout from the house above. This was probably where my favourite part of the museum approached: underneath the house is a spiral staircase that now exists. It takes you directly down into the tunnel where the rusty old printing machine still resides.
For ventilation the room had a few holes. I can imagine it would get incredibly hot there during the peak of summer. Especially with all the work taking place, numerous people within the small tunnel each doing their own contribution to the magazine's creation. The tunnel around this time of year felt cold, and it was a strange atmosphere to think of how this one room had such a massive impact on the course of modern history. The rise and collapse of an Empire. The Cold War. Massive amounts of Europe pursuing communist ideology that both connected and separated people throughout. Again, even that contribution to the present day with the rise of China and its own communist pursuit. Though this little room and one printing machine having such a weight on it all, beneath a well in a random district in Tbilisi. More strange that the curator didn't even bother coming down with us, with just one other person on the tour. We stood there for about ten minutes, looking around and getting a feel for the past. Some 100,000 magazines in different languages printed here and distributed throughout the world. I should also note that the machine is German and was disassembled and reassembled in order to get it down the well and into the tunnel.
The curator yelled down the well in a comedic fashion and asked us to come back up to continue, a bit surprised we spent so much time down there. This next part of the tour took us into the home where Stalin would stay. A small room with a bed and a chest, a chessboard on the table. Not a massively decorated room and it wouldn't surprise me if someone was living there from time to time. A little mosaic type like painting on the wall that showed various communist individuals throughout different industries. Those are always fun to see, quite creative forms of propaganda. We were told how people would look from the balcony over into the street during the times of printing, where people would be in the tunnel for up to 16 hours a day during shifts. From here it was back into the building where we started, to which we were taken on a bit more of a tour through the many magazines that were printed, as well as the people that helped print them. Here it felt like a collection of all sorts of things, many semi-related statues and paintings of Lenin that weren't even mentioned at all, not even a glance in their direction. Some of these were huge. I guess they had been collected throughout the years and likely threatened destruction as Georgia grew an increased hate for Lenin, Stalin, and their time as an SSR. A huge board on the wall was quickly lit up that displayed the many locations the magazines were distributed to.
This old building looked in pretty poor condition, but it's quite a common sight in Tbilisi, even for the homes that are still lived in or turned into cafes throughout the Old Tbilisi district. Huge cracks in the walls, peeling paint, or floorboards that have seen better (decades) days. This building was also used by the workers, to which they'd spend time planning and living in the rooms below. Though the rooms below were messy and full of all sorts of clutter. We didn't get a chance to go down there and there's likely a lot of interesting history within it all that got missed. More appreciated by the curator, I assume. It was cool seeing originals of the magazines printed, each one different to the last. In various languages and styles. All faded on the cracked walls. Next to propaganda paintings of Lenin again. Many of Lenin. With the odd model of various buildings throughout the world that pursued similar actions: printing machines and rooms hidden beneath fire places. The curator sometimes livened up a bit when discussing certain things here, though seemed quite happy to see foreigners interested in this sort of thing in the first place.
Now, I think that's about everything I have to show from this trip. A wonderful experience to see such a rejected but also relatively unknown piece of history. So much of it within a few small rooms. A delight to see it in a regular museum fashion without any political agenda. History as it is! Well worth the visit, and even more so given the whole thing was free.