Dr. Alexander Rondeli is a geographer and well known political analyst in Georgia.
""My mother's family, all educated people, were shot in the purges of 1937. You see, Stalin would never have been promoted in a democratic society – he would have ended his life as a marginal criminal. In the 1930s, when Stalin arrived at the Tbilisi railway station for an official visit as the emperor of Russia, it was the first time in years that he saw his mother. You know what he said to her? 'Are you still a whore?' I know people who were there. They heard it."
Reference: Kaplan, Robert D. 2000. Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. New York: Random House. Page 245.
""My mother's family, all educated people, were shot in the purges of 1937. You see, Stalin would never have been promoted in a democratic society – he would have ended his life as a marginal criminal. In the 1930s, when Stalin arrived at the Tbilisi railway station for an official visit as the emperor of Russia, it was the first time in years that he saw his mother. You know what he said to her? 'Are you still a whore?' I know people who were there. They heard it."
Reference: Kaplan, Robert D. 2000. Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. New York: Random House. Page 245.