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All Georgia Tbilisi Stalin’s Underground Printing House Museum

Stalin’s Underground Printing House Museum

The secret room where early Bolsheviks cranked out propaganda fliers on a smuggled printing press.

Tbilisi, Georgia

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Tori Elliott
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A museum guide next to the old printing press.   Sergi Barisashvili / Chai Khana
Entrance to the underground printing house.   Sergi Barisashvili / Chai Khana
Propaganda from the secret press.   Baia / Red Fedora Diary
The printing press.   Baia / Red Fedora Diary
Picture of Stalin on the wall.   Sergi Barisashvili / Chai Khana
The giant black door with the iconic Soviet hammer and sickle.   Baia / Red Fedora Diary
Portraits of young Bolsheviks who worked in the printing house.   Sergi Barisashvili / Chai Khana
The first photo is of a young Joseph Stalin.   Baia / Red Fedora Diary
Stalin’s bedroom in the printing house.   Sergi Barisashvili / Chai Khana
Bedroom at the printing house.   Baia / Red Fedora Diary
Museum exhibits   WanderLush / Atlas Obscura User
The original 1893 typographic machine   WanderLush / Atlas Obscura User
Lenin insignia inside the museum   WanderLush / Atlas Obscura User
A painting inside the museum shows the printing press in action   WanderLush / Atlas Obscura User
The printing press is located underneath this house   WanderLush / Atlas Obscura User
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About

A nondescript, crumbling house in Georgia’s capital hides a series of tunnels where in 1904, a young communist printed magazines, pamphlets, and newspapers calling for the removal of the Tsar. At the time, Georgia was still part of the Russian Empire, and that young communist went by his given name, Iosif Djugashvili. The world would later come to know him as Joseph Stalin.

Hidden beneath the house, a printing press—old even by the standards of 1906—was smuggled into Tbilisi in pieces by a network of Bolshevik supporters. For three years, the press clandestinely cranked out thousands of pamphlets written in Georgian, Russian, and Armenian.  

On the porch, lookouts—mostly women—would ring a bell if police were passing the house, a signal to those below to silence the noisy press. A series of tunnels led from the subterranean room to a nearby well, an escape route in anticipation of raids by Russian officials.

By the time Stalin began working at the printing press, he was already robbing banks and running protection rackets to raise money to support the Bolsheviks. Some of that money went toward printing and distributing the materials from the press around the region. 

In 1906, three years after it printed its first pamphlet, the press was destroyed when the underground room was discovered.

Thirty-one years later, Stalin had consolidated power in what had become the USSR. Under his government, the press was restored and the building turned into a museum that included a movie theatre that screened Soviet films. But in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the museum was abandoned. 

Today, the museum is operated by the Communist Party of Georgia, but it receives no money from the state. The printing press is caked in rust and the museum itself is largely in disrepair. But in recent years, the story of Stalin’s printing press has found a new audience: Chinese tourists.

Related Tags

Secret Museums Secret Underground Printing Paper Communism Dictators Tunnels Subterranean Sites

Know Before You Go

The printing press is located within the Georgian Communist Party headquarters on Kaspi Street in Avlabari district, a 600-meter walk from the 300 Aragveli Metro Station. Soso, the caretaker, lives on the property and is there every day to open the museum up for visitors. If you want to call ahead, his phone number is 571721879. Guided tours are available, but only in Georgian or Russian. You get an A4 information sheet in English when you arrive. Entrance costs 10 GEL per person.

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Community Contributors

Added By

ToriElliott

Edited By

lostlara, WanderLush, latitudewattitude, Meg

  • lostlara
  • WanderLush
  • latitudewattitude
  • Meg

Published

March 5, 2018

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Sources
  • https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/out-of-eden-walk/articles/2015-07-stalins-cave/
  • https://www.redfedoradiary.com/joseph-stalin-secret-publishing-house/
  • https://eurasianet.org/s/georgias-communists-with-chinese-help-fight-to-preserve-stalins-press
  • https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g294195-d4961521-Reviews-J_Stalin_s_Underground_Printing_House_Museum-Tbilisi.html
Stalin’s Underground Printing House Museum
Tbilisi
Georgia
41.690539, 44.830153

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