September 26, 2008	Friday	Ramazan 25, 1429

TBILISI, Sept 25: Georgia will update a museum in honour of its best-known son, Joseph Stalin, to reflect last month’s Russian military onslaught on the country, the Georgian culture ministry said on Thursday.

The Joseph Stalin Museum in Gori, which includes the hut where the Soviet dictator was born in 1878, will be “altered and adapted to modern reality and museum philosophy,” said culture ministry spokeswoman Natia Murachashvili.

“The Stalin museum will include a permanent exhibition describing Russia’s recent aggression against Georgia.

“The city of Gori where the museum is located was one of the epicentres of Russia’s aggression and it’s relevant to have an exhibition describing the brutal invasion,” she said.

The museum, a complex of buildings that include Stalin’s first home, was shut and some of the feared leader’s personal items evacuated as Russia hit key installations nearby and Stalin Square outside came under cluster bomb attack.

Hundreds of people were killed on both sides as Russia and Georgia clashed over the Moscow-backed rebel region of South Ossetia, close to Gori. Russia says it was defending thousands of Russian citizens living in South Ossetia, while Georgia accuses Russia of trying to annex the territory.

Georgia already opened a Museum of Soviet Occupation in Tbilisi in 2006 in the course of re-evaluating the country’s 20th century past, reflecting President Mikheil Saakashvili’s broader pro-western agenda.

The Stalin Museum however has continued to pay uncritical homage to a man who oversaw not only the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany but also the deaths of millions of people in Gulag prison camps and brutal deportations.

Reflecting Gori’s pride as the dictator’s hometown, the museum is located near not only Stalin Square, but also Stalin Avenue and a huge statue of the leader in a heavy overcoat.

The opening of the Soviet occupation museum in Tbilisi, modelled on a similar museum in the Latvian capital Riga, prompted Russia’s then-President Vladimir Putin to complain that it had an anti-Moscow political agenda.—AFP