Stalin's and Gorbachev's Dachas

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OliZ

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Trail stats

Distance: 3.8 mi
Elevation gain: 315 ft
Technical difficulty: Moderate
Elevation loss: 315 ft
Max elevation: 232 ft
TrailRank: 36
Min elevation: 232 ft
Trail type: Loop

Moving time: one hour 25 minutes
Time: 2 hours one minute
Coordinates: 1022
Uploaded: September 4, 2021
Recorded: September 2021

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near Miusera, Abkhazia (Georgia)

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Trail photos

Itinerary description

Visit of the dachas built by Staline and Gorbachev. A journey into soviet leaders' luxury...All looks frozen since the 80's...

Waypoints

Avenue to Stalin's dacha

Stalin's dacha

This relatively modest, three-bedroom house offers little visual sense of the Stalin period. Attention to concealment marks the dacha’s interior layout (see separate photos). Each one of the two floors features adjoining three-room sets -- a bedroom with bathroom, an office or a work area and a dining room -- that allow for self-contained movement. Apparently, Stalin would show the guard that he was sleeping in one bedroom, but, in reality, he’d be sleeping in another, reflecting the sense of insecurity of the dictator.

Stalin's swimming pool

Panorama

In the background, a 17-floor vacation resort for senior dignitaries that was built under Krutshchev. Today, that structure, still featuring its Soviet-style décor, accommodates tourists.

Luxurious vegetation

Probably well maintained in previous times...

Luxurious vegetation

Annex building to Gorbachev dacha

Gorbachev dacha

Georgian Communist Party General Secretary Eduard Shevardnadze offered stalin's dacha to Gorbachev as a summer residence after Shevardnadze’s appointment as Soviet foreign minister in 1985, but Raisa Gorbacheva, the Soviet leader’s wife, “categorically refused". Instead, “she said it’s better to have a place on the seashore, a small cottage,” he recalled. The resulting “cottage” -- a five-floor villa down the hill from the Stalin dacha -- now hosts official functions.