Vertigo Transsib: Pyongyang

[Vertigo]

The last city in these series of my Transsiberian travel. It's certainly the weirdest city I ever visited, and I expect that to remain so for the rest of my life.

Arriving by train in the city was a strange experience in itself. Because of the energy crisis in the country, many parts of Pyongyang don't have electricity on parts of the day. There's also no streetlights in most parts of the city. So we travelled by train along huge rows of commie blocks, which we could only vaguely see in the moonlight. Creepy.

After arriving on Pyongyang's main station (military music blasting through the speakers...), we were waited for by our guides, who immidiately brought us to our hotel. This hotel (160 meter high) is only meant for foreign tourists and is situated on an island in the river (so tourists can easily be seperated from North-Koreans). This means that they can allow things for the tourists that are not allowed outside. We had BBC World on our TV and there's even a casino in the basement!

The next days we wouldn't go anywhere without our guides. They showed us lots of monumental places in the country at a very fast pace, while trying to ensure you won't see much of the regular life in the country. But they don't fully succeed in that: you get quite a good impression of the poor village life when passing through the countryside by train or car. Unfortuantely, taking pictures of such scenes was out of the question.

In Pyongyang things are a bit more relaxed: you can freely take pictures in most streets. This is because Pyongyang's citizens are privleged citizens: they get better clothes, jobs, food, etc. Also, the city doesn't look bad at all. It's not beautiful though, except when you like huge amounts of commie blocks and giant communist momuments.

The country is getting a bit more modern. There are far more private cars on the streets than some years ago. Also, there are some food kiosks on street, operated privately (!) by people, at the same time competing(!!) the state-run shops. What's more: FIAT recently opened a car factory in the country... and there's even advertising (!!!!) in the streets for the cars produced there.

Anyway, here's are the first pics of Pyongyang. Unfortunately during our entire stay it was very foggy and cloudy. I tried to correct some pics because of that, but this also means that they are a bit grainy and strange coloured.

More pics will follow.

1. The Great Leder Kim-Il-Sung. Still President of the Democratic(?) People's Republic of Korea, despite the fact that he's dead since a couple of years.


2. The Arch of Triumph. Of course a little bit higher than the one in Paris.


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7. The Great People's Study House, some sort of central library. Would they have George Orwell's 1984?


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10. The Tower of Juche Idea (180 m). The Juche Idea is the principle on which the country is founded. It stresses the importance of independance and self-reliance for a country. A bit weird in a country that could only function because of cheap trade with the Soviet Union. The economy had collapsed since than, and there's even not enough food in the country now. Things are slowly improving though, partly because they now (reluctantly) accept foreign aid.


11. The view from the Juche Tower


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14. A busy street in the heart of the city.


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20. Night view from our hotel room (40th floor)


More to come...

[John]

You know, Vertigo, I was waiting for those pictures alot
And now I can say wow!
This is indeed looking freaky, all those empty streets, commieblocks and all. It seems you had a very interesting experience there, and staying in a hotel on the 40th floor should be pretty fun as well, at least for the views you get from there.

Although the city looks not THAT bad in those pictures, but as you noticed this must be North Korea's show-off place #1 so I can only imagine how people live in other places in N.Korea

Thanks for the pictures and of course waiting for more, every photo of this country has exceptional value.

Btw, Vertigo, could you also write some details what the guides told about Pyongyang and generally about N.Korea? Did they tell anything about why the country lives like that, what is the future of the country and generally what issues they talked about? I'm really wishing to go there myself some day

[Vertigo]

By themselves, the guides mostly talked in a very "statistical" manner: they told loads of facts about what we saw, but always things like "what", "who" and "when", never "why"... (if you understand what I mean). Although I was surprised their talks had less propaganda than I expected.

But when you started asking about politics or the relation with America, the stream of propaganda, lies, etc. started. Interesting to hear for some time, but you can't get into a serious discussion with them, so you get numb with it. Therefore I found it more interesting to talk with them about casual things, like how they lived their lifes, etc. They spoke pretty openly about those issues and they turned out to be very nice and kind people anyway...

An interesting thing is, that they do not deny the problematic situation they're in. They talked quite openly about the electricity shortages, and even about the food problems. However, they didn't blame the system or the Leaders for that. Instead, they saw their system as the only solution to their problems, and blamed all hostile foreign powers for their problems. The way they spoke about this made me think they really, really believe in this and they are not just repeating propaganda. One of the guides said in an almost desperate way that he really wanted that the country would be respected more by the world. And I think he was talking honestly at that moment.

It all was very close to "1984", if you ask me. "He loved Big Brother....".

[Huhu]

Wow great pics.

Btw what is that gigantic pyramid thing?

[snake]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

This hotel (160 meter high) is only meant for foreign tourists and is situated on an island in the river (so tourists can easily be seperated from North-Koreans). This means that they can allow things for the tourists that are not allowed outside. We had BBC World on our TV and there's even a casino in the basement!

The hotel was built and still is managed by a Macao Chinese businessman, Macao has a huge casino business. so it's not surprise to have casino in this hotel. Sometime I just wonder whether we Chinese have a natural gene for gambling, so many Chinese addict to it. And most of tourists to N. Korea are Chinese, I believe. Personally, I don't like gambling.

20. Night view from our hotel room (40th floor)


More to come...

Not a bad nightview, better than what I thought.

[cicarra]

The city is absolutely beautiful and stunning. Very very futuristic and uncrowded. Everything is simply so orderly. Thank you Vertigo for the great pictures!

[Den Haag AvW]

Fascinating!
It must have been one extraordinary experience!

[cicarra]

Originally Posted by Huhu

Wow great pics.

Btw what is that gigantic pyramid thing?

That's the famous RyuGyong hotel. Too bad it never got finished coz the gov't ran out of money.

[JP]

unbelievable ! I did not know that was possible to take photos of this city. Really impressive... so sad...

[John]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

By themselves, the guides mostly talked in a very "statistical" manner: they told loads of facts about what we saw, but always things like "what", "who" and "when", never "why"... (if you understand what I mean). Although I was surprised their talks had less propaganda than I expected.

But when you started asking about politics or the relation with America, the stream of propaganda, lies, etc. started. Interesting to hear for some time, but you can't get into a serious discussion with them, so you get numb with it. Therefore I found it more interesting to talk with them about casual things, like how they lived their lifes, etc. They spoke pretty openly about those issues and they turned out to be very nice and kind people anyway...

An interesting thing is, that they do not deny the problematic situation they're in. They talked quite openly about the electricity shortages, and even about the food problems. However, they didn't blame the system or the Leaders for that. Instead, they saw their system as the only solution to their problems, and blamed all hostile foreign powers for their problems. The way they spoke about this made me think they really, really believe in this and they are not just repeating propaganda. One of the guides said in an almost desperate way that he really wanted that the country would be respected more by the world. And I think he was talking honestly at that moment.

It all was very close to "1984", if you ask me. "He loved Big Brother....".

This is pretty interesting. It's perhaps normal that they're not telling propaganda stuff to the tourists, the foreigners wouldn't believe that anyway so no need to waste time. I think the real propaganda is directed to the N.Koreans themselves just to keep them loyal o the regime and make believe all the stuff which is said.

And I also believe they could be honest, after all it's their country, the regime leaders are also their people, not set by some occupying force (as in case of the USSR), so naturally it must be really sore to know that your country is treted badly in the world ...even if it's N.Korea. I completely understand those people, just too bad there's nothing they can do

[schmidt]

Very interesting thread again!

Pyongyang seemed so gigantic and empty, depressing in some ways as well, but I was quite impressed with the quantity of lights in the last pics, I thought most of those buildings were empty.

It's a sad situation for that people, even more when you have 2 ultra modern and successful neighbours.

Cool thread, I hope I can make some similar trip someday.

By the way, how long did you take from Moscow all the way to Pyongyang? And were there any flights from Pyongyang to Europe or you just had to go back to China to catch a plane?

[beivushtang]

pyongyang is freakily one of the most interesting place in the world, beautiful, how did you get a visa to the DPRK ?

[Singidunum]

GREAT!

whole trip and pics are just GREAT!



Pyongyang is very nice because it is not overcrowded.

Is there possibility to go into any other town or to drive in metro?

could you go outside of hotel?

can you speak with people in ste streets? do north koreans you had contact with spoken english or russian?

thanks.

[Kampflamm]

Great pics!

Does every tourist get a government minder? Did you bow your head in front of that Kim Il Sung statue? I read that even foreign tourists have to do that to show their respect.

[Desven]

i'm suprised,because the quality of the streets doesn't seem to be so bad!

[Wu-Gambino]

What's the tower to the far right?

Also did they say anything about that Ryugyong Hotel?

[LSyd]

whoa, scary, fascinating and beautiful...if it wasn't supporting that regime, i'd consider going.

those "not overcrowded streets" are like that because the government keeps people out; they assign where you live, and when and where you can travel. just think if the government falls how many people will move to Pyongyang.

great pics, and thanks, especially of the Ryogyung.

it's all so damned surreal.

-

p.s. if you want a wierd city, in a good way, go visit Asheville, North Carolina, U.S. it's a small mountain city mostly populated by stereotypical rednecks conservatives and hippies. but despite that, it's a great city.

[Vertigo]

@boom: our total trip was 5 weeks, including all the stops along the route. From Pyongyang we took a train back to Beijing, and took a plane back home from there.

@singidunum: we couldn't travel freely, we had two guides who more or less decided what we were going to do. We did visit the metro, pics will come tomorrow.

@kampflamm: so, yes we got guides from the state travel agency. We didn't really bow for the statue; the guides did of course and we just stood along them. I suppose disturbing them while doing that is not a good idea...

[JoseRodolfo]

Great!!!!!!!! Thanks very much Vertigo!!!

here there ia an intersting "image trick", they painted snowed huge montains in the wall, so when we see the statue with the montains behind, we have the sensation that it´s even a bigger and higher statue!! Just try to imagine that with a white or gray wall behind, it certainly changes the way we see the statue...

[zergcerebrates]

I'm surprised foreigners are allowed into North Korea. How on earth did you get in there in the first place??