Stalin's Underground Printing House Museum

Secret underground printing press used by young Stalin and fellow Bolsheviks

In 1903, a printing press was smuggled into Tbilisi in pieces and installed in a secret basement beneath a carpenter's workshop. For two years it churned out Bolshevik propaganda — including copies of Lenin's Iskra newspaper — under the noses of the tsarist secret police. The young Joseph Stalin was closely involved in the operation.

The building on Kamo Street (now Stalin Square) has been preserved as a museum, with the original underground press still in place. The space is cramped and atmospheric — a genuine piece of revolutionary history, not a reconstruction. The exhibits in the upper floors contextualise the Bolshevik underground in Tiflis and Stalin's role in it. Not many tourists make it here, which makes it all the more interesting.

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A story
The printing press here was smuggled into Tbilisi in pieces in 1903 and operated secretly for two years, producing thousands of copies of Bolshevik propaganda including Lenin's *Iskra* newspaper. Joseph Stalin — then known as Soso Jughashvili — was a central figure in its operation. The press was discovered by tsarist police in 1906, but the building survived because its secret underground level was never found until the Soviet era.