Here’s a link to a photoset of a North Korean tour by some Russian webdesigner. The captions are all in Russian, but some of them have been translated here.
North Korea has been a source of fascination to me, even before the whole “WHOO! I Got NUKES!” thing, ever since I read a news story about Kim Jong Il having claimed to invent the hamburger. It reminded me of the fake Coca-cola newscast in “Goodbye Lenin.” I wonder if this entire country is like that poor mother, in a coma and totally unaware of the events transpiring outside the world; or if they know things aren’t quite right but just go along with it for the sake of convenience (i.e., avoiding being sent to a work camp): “Yeah, Mr. Dictator, you did invent hamburgers, even though we have like two cows in the entire country. Suuure.” I don’t really understand how N.K. can sustain a nuclear weapons programme, seeing as they haven’t even figured out how to make smooth glass for windows yet. Oh well, guess their people don’t need to eat or have running water or anything.
Supposedly South Korea, despite the ideological differences and political strains, sends a lot of aid to their northern neighbors because, after all, they’re still Koreans. A lot of families are still sundered by the divide. According to one of the articles on that Human Rights Watch page (which isn’t loading for me right now, but hopefully it comes back up soon), it’s a lot easier to go from N.K to China, and then Seoul, than to try and cross the heavily guarded border; the journey is fraught with dangers, especially for women. The refugees are pretty much at the mercy of Chinese officials, who will deport them back to N.K. where they will receive even harsher treatment, or human traffickers.
The photos definitely recall West Berlin before the wall came down; everything looks like it had been frozen in 1950 and just recently thawed. It is really intriguing to see a place still untouched by McDonald’s or Starbucks. Some of the photos are actually pretty cool, like this one of a train station:
A little rococo for my tastes, but it certainly contrasts with the other shit-hole type photos of the city.
Anyway, it’s an interesting peek into the lesser known, dystopian spoke of the axis of evil.
* – Haha, someone on that forum mentioned that they use photos from Pyongyang for video game maps. They do look like they’d work rather nicely for a post-apocalyptic FPS, or better yet, an RPG. Just look at this:
This is where the boss (or maybe ‘Dear Leader’ himself) would be lurking about. Damn.
* * – More photos:
http://www.crowcroft.net/dprk.htm
http://www.crowcroft.net/dprk1_2.htm
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