Josef Vissarionovich Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia, in December 1878. His birth put the city on the map and was one of the first places to erect a statue to the Soviet leader. And it may well be the last city in the world to still have a statue of him in place. Despite his many atrocities and the destruction of any reminders of him elsewhere in the former Soviet bloc, Gori still remembers its local hero.