The moment I opened the door, the grandmother was standing there with a beaming smile.
"Welcome! What's your name?"
In that instant, all my traveler’s wariness vanished.
To Gori, Stalin's birthplace
The reason I came to Gori was the Stalin Museum.
Joseph Stalin. The 20th-century dictator who led the Soviet Union and is said to have been responsible for the deaths of millions in mass purges. He was also the nation's leader when it defeated Germany in World War II. That Stalin's hometown is the small Georgian town of Gori.
Having studied in Russia, I’d long been interested in Soviet-era history. I wanted to feel in real places what I had read about in textbooks.
Five hours by train from Poti. I arrived swaying on a Soviet-era local train. There were only two or three people on the platform. The station staff didn't understand English, so I asked in Russian, "Where is the exit?" Somehow I got it.
It was truly a small town.
A world map filled with pushpins
A guesthouse I found on Booking.com. As soon as I checked in, the grandmother greeted me.
"Tea? Coffee?"
She brought me tea before I even put my bags down. We sat across from each other at the table and ended up talking for a long time.
She said she’d been listed on Booking.com since 2013. Guests come from all over the world and the ratings are always between 9.4 and 9.7. Dozens of messages written in colorful pens were stuck on the entrance wall: English, Russian, Spanish, Arabic. The globe on display was covered with pins—almost every country was filled.
"Japanese people always behave so well. I want to go there someday."
She also talked about the Soviet era. Back then she could freely go to Moscow and Saint Petersburg. "Now it's become a bit complicated," she said, gazing into the distance. She had two children, a son and a daughter; the eldest is 31 and works as a doctor in the capital, Tbilisi.
Since it was the off-season and there were no other guests, the two of us chatted the whole time.
The Stalin Museum and the city walls
After a nap, I went to the Stalin Museum.
The museum was built during the Soviet era after Stalin's death. It was created to convey his glory. Next to it his family home from the 1880s, where he was born, has been preserved. Nearby, his private train from the Soviet period was also on display: luxury compartments, a conference table, sofas.
Display cases were filled with huge amounts of secret police records and documents. Orders for the purges. State classified papers. Looking at them through the glass, I realized these were the real things.
The history I had studied in Russia felt three-dimensional.
I went outside and peeked inside the train Stalin used.
After that I went to the city walls behind town. Climbing up to the hill, the wind was roaring and it was very cold. In the strong gusts that seemed like they'd carry me away, Gori spread out below.
Stalin was born in this town and from here he changed the world. I thought about that standing on the exposed hilltop.
Shawarma and Édith Piaf
I was hungry, so I went to eat shawarma.
Shawarma is a dish brought to Russia by Syrian refugees and has now spread everywhere. It's vegetables and chicken wrapped in a thin flatbread and rolled up—similar to Turkish kebab. I also ordered fries. It was incredibly delicious.
The server patiently explained the menu item by item in English. Towns with few tourists leave people more at ease. It's the same logic as Tokyo being cold: the more rural you go, the warmer people are. That doesn't change in Japan or elsewhere. It's not that people are cold; the environment changes them.
Back at the guesthouse, the grandmother was playing the piano.
There was an old upright piano at the back of the room. It was a tune I recognized. After a while I realized—it was Édith Piaf. A singer who represented France in the 1930s–40s. The very voice whose song Céline Dion sang at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony.
"When I was young I went to music school. I love the piano."
When I asked, "May I play?" she said of course and made a space for me.
I played, then she played. We took turns playing and laughed for a while.
At a guesthouse in a small Georgian town, playing Édith Piaf with a grandmother — I thought, so nights like this exist.
Dinner: Gori cutlets
For dinner I went to a nearby restaurant, but it had just closed, so I went to another one.
There I ordered the Gori cutlets recommended by a woman at the restaurant. They were very greasy and delicious, but I couldn't eat two of them.
If you ask whether they're tasty—yes, they are—but it's the kind of taste that makes you think you don't need to eat more.
On the way back to the guesthouse I ran into some kids about middle-school age. They spoke quietly, something like "There's an Asian person here," and avoided me. So I tried smiling. They said "Ni Hao," so I replied with "Hello" (laughs). From there we chatted friendly and ended up taking a photo together.
Children are pure, innocent, and bundles of curiosity. I thought I want to live without forgetting my childlike heart.
The morning I didn't calculate the price
The next morning we agreed on breakfast at 8:30.
When I woke up it was almost 9.
I took a shower and went to the lobby at 9:15, and the grandmother had been waiting for me the whole time.
When I said, "Sorry, I was sleepy," she laughed and shook her head.
Breakfast was laid out on the table: kolbasa (salami), sulguni cheese, bread, smetana (sour cream), and a homemade croissant-like pastry.
It was 15 lari. A bit expensive for Georgia. But I didn't mind at all.
I had no inclination whatsoever to calculate the price.
Normally I would convert it to yen and weigh whether it's reasonable. But that morning I didn't. The fact that the grandmother had made it for me was enough.
I think people move for those who treat them with care. For those who satisfy their self-esteem. Before price comes, the heart is moved.
You can fill a stomach with food, but the stomach of self-esteem is hard to satiate. That's exactly why people are moved in that direction. This is why money moves. It's something often heard in business, but that morning was the first time I actually felt it physically. This grandmother has been doing it for thirteen years.
See you again
Before leaving I handed her the message notebook.
It's a notebook in which people I meet while traveling write a short note. The grandmother thought for a while and then wrote in Russian. She also told me outside the notebook, "You are truly a good child. You're a wonderful person."
We took a photo together.
I called a taxi and headed for the entrance.
At that moment there were tears in the grandmother's eyes.
"It's not goodbye. See you again."
We hugged and I got into the taxi. Through the rearview mirror she was waving.
I thought life is changed by the people you meet.
Not money, not places, not experiences. People. How deeply you've connected with good people—that, I felt anew, determines happiness.
There are times when people in Africa report higher happiness than in Japan, even without economic wealth. I think it's because the density of human connections is different. As Japan grew richer, people's distances from each other grew. Everyone builds walls to protect themselves. No one makes eye contact on the train.
Gori was a small town. There were almost no tourists. Yet the grandmother's guesthouse was filled with pins from around the world.
Many different people likely received the same warmth here. The warmest place in the world might surprisingly be somewhere like this.
