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| Stalin and Keke |
Ekaterina (Keke) Geladze was born in a small Orthodox village in Georgia, at the age of 17 she married Vissarion (Beso) Dzhugashvili. Her two children died shortly after birth, and the third - Joseph - survived. After the birth of Joseph, Vissarion began to drink heavily, so Keke abandoned him. Stalin's mother was an extremely strict and cruel woman, she worked hard to give her son all the best and wanted Joseph to become a priest. But Joseph himself wanted something more ...
By all accounts, Keke was a stunning woman. A true Georgian beauty who was not afraid to be frank with her son, even while he was in power. A few years before her death in 1937, Stalin went to visit her on a rare occasion.
Keke never learned Russian so they conversed in Georgian. Stalin would ask his mother while she was so hard on him and
She replied Joseph, what exactly are you now?’
Stalin : ‘do you remember the Tsar? Well, I’m like a tsar.’
Keke : ‘You’d have done better to have been a priest,’ she said in response.
When he asked her why she had beaten him so much as a child, she shrugged and said, ‘it’s why you’ve turned out so well.’
