Stalin's birthplace and the cave city of Uplistsikhe — Georgia's most historically layered day trip from Tbilisi
Gori is a city of 50,000 in central Georgia's Shida Kartli region, 80km west of Tbilisi on the Mtkvari (Kura) River, and is simultaneously known as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin and the gateway to Uplistsikhe — one of the oldest cave cities in the Caucasus, carved into sandstone cliffs above the river. The Stalin Museum in Gori is the largest collection of Stalin memorabilia in the world: his birth home (encased in a protective pavilion), his personal railway carriage, and four floors of photographs, paintings, and personal effects spanning his life from Gori cobbler's son to Soviet leader.…
Gori's medieval fortress (Goris Tsikhe) on the hill above the city was a major Bagrationi royal stronghold from the 9th century and the administrative centre of the Kartli kingdom. The city was captured by Tamerlane in 1395 and rebuilt repeatedly; it served as a major Caucasus trade hub until the Russian conquest of Georgia in 1800 incorporated it into the Russian Empire. Ioseb Jughashvili (Stalin) was born in Gori in 1878 to a Georgian cobbler and a serf's daughter — his formative years in this Caucasian provincial town are central to understanding the Georgian-Russian identity tensions of h…