Today we will take the first big tour of Pyongyang, and we will start with the holy of holies - the mausoleum of Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il. The mausoleum is located in the Kumsusan Palace, where Kim Il Sung once worked and which, after the death of the leader in 1994, was turned into a huge pantheon of memory. After the death of Kim Jong Il in 2011, his body was also placed in the Kumsusan Palace.
A trip to the mausoleum is a sacred ceremony in the life of any North Korean worker. Mostly they go there organized groups- entire organizations, collective farms, military units, student classes. At the entrance to the pantheon, hundreds of groups anxiously await their turn. For foreign tourists Entrance to the mausoleum is allowed on Thursdays and Sundays - the guides also put foreigners in a reverent and solemn mood and warn about the need to dress as formally as possible. Our group, however, for the most part ignored this warning - well, we don’t have anything better than jeans and a shirt on our trip (I must say that in the DPRK they really don’t like jeans, considering them “American clothes”). But nothing - they let me in, of course. But many other foreigners whom we saw in the mausoleum (Australians, Western Europeans), playing the role to the fullest, dressed very formally - lush funeral dresses, tuxedos with a bow tie...
You cannot take photographs inside the mausoleum and at all approaches to it - so I will try to simply describe what is happening inside. First, tourists wait in line in a small waiting pavilion for foreigners, then go to the common area, where they mingle with North Korean groups. At the entrance to the mausoleum itself, you need to hand over your phones and cameras, a very thorough search - you can only take heart medicine with you if in the state rooms with the leaders someone suddenly becomes ill from awe. And then we ride on a horizontal escalator along a long, very long corridor, the marble walls of which are hung with photographs of both leaders in all their greatness and heroism - photographs are interspersed different years, from the young revolutionary times of Comrade Kim Il Sung to recent years the reign of his son Comrade Kim Jong Il. On one of the places of honor near the end of the corridor, a photograph of Kim Jong Il was seen in Moscow at a meeting with the then very youthful Russian President, made in 2001, I think. This pompous long, very long corridor with huge portraits, along which the escalator travels for about 10 minutes, willy-nilly sets the mood for some kind of solemn mood. Even foreigners from another world are attuned - what to say about those who tremble local residents, for whom Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are gods.
From the inside, the Kumsusan Palace is divided into two halves - one is dedicated to Comrade Kim Il Sung, the other to Comrade Kim Jong Il. Huge marble halls decorated with gold, silver and jewelry, pompous corridors. The luxury and pomp of all this is quite difficult to describe. The bodies of the leaders lie in two huge darkened marble halls, at the entrance to which you pass through another inspection line, where you are driven through streams of air in order to be blown away before visiting the main sacred halls. simple world this is the last speck of dust. Four people plus a guide approach directly to the bodies of the leaders - we go around the circle and bow. You need to bow to the floor when you are in front of the leader, as well as to the left and right - when you are behind the head of the leader, you do not need to bow. On Thursday and Sunday, foreign groups also come along with ordinary Korean workers - it is interesting to watch the reaction of North Koreans to the bodies of the leaders. Everyone is in the brightest ceremonial attire - peasants, workers, a lot of military men in uniform. Almost all women cry and wipe their eyes with handkerchiefs, men also often cry - the tears of young, thin village soldiers are especially striking. Many people experience hysterics in mourning halls... People cry touchingly and sincerely - however, they are brought up with this from birth.
After the halls where the bodies of the leaders are buried, the groups go through other halls of the palace and get acquainted with the awards - one hall is dedicated to the awards of Comrade Kim Il Sung, and the other to the awards of Comrade Kim Jong Il. Also shown are the personal belongings of the leaders, their cars, as well as two famous railway cars in which Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il traveled around the world, respectively. Separately, it is worth noting the Hall of Tears - the most pompous hall where the nation said goodbye to its leaders.
On the way back, we again drove for about 10 minutes along this long, very long corridor with portraits - it so happened that several foreign groups were driving us in a row, and towards the leaders, already sobbing and nervously fiddling with their scarves, were only Koreans - collective farmers. , workers, military... Hundreds of people rushed in front of us, going to the coveted meeting with the leaders. It was a meeting of two worlds - we looked at them, and they looked at us. I was very amazed by those minutes on the escalator. I've broken a little here chronological order, since the day before we had already thoroughly traveled around the regions of the DPRK and got an idea about them - so I will give here what I wrote in the travel notebook upon leaving the mausoleum. “For them these are Gods. And this is the ideology of the country. At the same time, there is poverty in the country, denunciations, people are nothing. Taking into account the fact that almost everyone serves in the army for at least 5-7 years, and soldiers in the DPRK manually perform the most difficult work, including almost 100% of national construction, we can say that this is a slave-owning system, free work force. At the same time, the ideology presents that “the army helps the country, and we need even stricter discipline in the army and in the country in general to move towards a bright future”... And the country is on average at the level of the 1950s... But what palaces of the leaders! This is how to zombify society! After all, they, not knowing otherwise, really love them, they, if necessary, are ready to kill for Kim Il Sung and are ready to die themselves. Of course, it’s great to love your Motherland, to be a patriot of your country, you can also have a good or bad attitude towards this or that political figure. But how all this happens here is beyond the comprehension of modern man!”
You can take photographs in the square in front of the Kumsusan Palace - it is especially interesting to photograph people.
1. Women in ceremonial costumes go to the mausoleum.
2. Sculptural composition near the left wing of the palace.
4. Group photography with the mausoleum in the background.
5. Some take pictures, others impatiently wait for their turn.
6. I also took a photo for memory.
7. Pioneer bow to the leaders.
8. Peasants in ceremonial clothes wait in line at the entrance to the mausoleum.
9. Almost 100% of the male population of the DPRK is subject to military conscription for 5-7 years. At the same time, military personnel perform not only military work, but also general civilian work - they build everywhere, plow fields with oxen, work on collective and state farms. Women serve for one year and on a voluntary basis - naturally, there are many volunteers.
10. The front facade of the Kumsusan Palace.
11. The next stop is a memorial to the heroes of the struggle for liberation from Japan. Heavy rain…
14. The graves of the fallen stand on the mountainside in a checkerboard pattern - so that everyone buried here can see the panorama of Pyongyang from the top of Taesong Mountain.
15. The central place of the memorial is occupied by the revolutionary Kim Jong Suk, glorified in the DPRK - the first wife of Kim Il Sung, the mother of Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Suk died in 1949 at the age of 31 during her second birth.
16. After visiting the memorial, we will head to the suburbs of Pyongyang, the village of Mangyongdae, where Comrade Kim Il Sung was born and where for a long time up to already post-war years his grandparents lived. This is one of the most sacred places in North Korea.
19. A tragicomic story happened with this pot, crumpled during smelting - not realizing all its holiness, one of our tourists tapped it with his finger. And our guide Kim did not have time to warn that touching anything here is strictly prohibited. One of the memorial employees noticed this and called someone. A minute later, our Kim’s phone rang - the guide was called somewhere for work. We walked around the park for about forty minutes, accompanied by a driver and a second guide, a young guy who didn’t speak Russian. When it became really worrying about Kim, she finally appeared - upset and tearful. When asked what would happen to her now, she smiled sadly and quietly said, “What difference does it make?”... She felt so sorry for her at that moment...
20. While our guide Kim was at work, we walked a little in the park surrounding Mangyongdae. This mosaic panel depicts the young comrade Kim Il Sung leaving his home and leaving the country to fight the Japanese militarists who occupied Korea. And his grandparents saw him off in his native Mangyongdae.
21. The next item on the program is a monument to Soviet soldiers who took part in the liberation of Korea from Japan at the very end of World War II.
23. Behind the memorial to our soldiers, a huge park begins, stretching along the hills along the river for several kilometers. In one of the cozy green corners a rare ancient monument was discovered - there are few in Pyongyang historical monuments, as the city suffered greatly during the Korean War of 1950-1953.
24. From the hill there is a beautiful view of the river - how familiar these wide avenues and panel buildings of high-rise buildings seem. But how surprisingly few cars there are!
25. The newest bridge over the Taedong River is the last of five bridges included in the post-war master plan for the development of Pyongyang. It was built in the 1990s.
26. Not far from the cable-stayed bridge is the largest May Day Stadium in the DPRK with a capacity of 150,000, where major events take place. sport competitions and the famous Arirang festival is held.
27. Just a couple of hours ago, I left the mausoleum slightly in a negative mood, which intensified after the higher authorities got into trouble because of some pot of our unfortunate escort. But as soon as you walk around the park, look at the people, your mood changes. Children play in a cozy park...
28. A middle-aged intellectual, secluded on a Sunday afternoon in the shade, studies the works of Kim Il Sung...
29. Does it remind you of anything? :)
30. Today is Sunday - and the city park is full of vacationers. People play volleyball, just sit on the grass...
31. And the hottest thing on Sunday afternoon was on the open dance floor - both local youth and older Korean workers were having a blast. How brilliantly they performed their bizarre movements!
33. This little guy danced the best.
34. We also joined the dancers for about 10 minutes - and they happily accepted us. This is what an alien guest looks like at a disco in North Korea! :)
35. After a walk through the park, we will return to the center of Pyongyang. From the observation deck of the Juche Idea Monument (remember, which glows in the night and which I photographed from the hotel window) there are wonderful views of Pyongyang. Let's enjoy the panorama! So, a socialist city as it is! :)
37. Much is already familiar - for example, central Library named after Comrade Kim Il Sung.
39. Cable-stayed bridge and stadium.
41. Incredible impressions - quite our Soviet landscapes. Tall buildings, wide streets and avenues. But how few people are on the streets. And almost no cars! It’s as if, thanks to a time machine, we were transported 30-40 years ago!
42. A new super hotel for foreign tourists and high-ranking guests is being completed.
43. "Ostankino" tower.
44. The most comfortable five-star hotel in Pyongyang - naturally, for foreigners.
45. And this is our hotel “Yangakdo” - four stars. I look now - how reminiscent it is of the high-rise building of the Moscow Design Institute where I work! :))))
46. At the foot of the monument to the Juche Ideas there are sculptural compositions of workers.
48. In the 36th photo you may have noticed interesting monument. This is the Workers' Party of Korea Monument. Dominant sculptural composition- sickle, hammer and brush. Everything is more or less clear with the hammer and sickle, but the brush in North Korea symbolizes the intelligentsia.
50. Inside the composition there is a panel, in the central part of which the “progressive socialist world masses” are shown, who are fighting against the “bourgeois puppet government South Korea"and are moving the "occupied southern territories, torn apart by class struggle," towards socialism and inevitable unification with the DPRK.
51. These are the South Korean masses.
52. This is the progressive intelligentsia of South Korea.
53. This appears to be an episode of ongoing armed struggle.
54. A gray-haired veteran and a young pioneer.
55. Sickle, hammer and brush - collective farmer, worker and intellectual.
56. In conclusion of today’s post, I would like to give some more scattered photographs of Pyongyang, taken while moving around the city. Facades, episodes, artifacts. Let's start from Pyongyang Station. By the way, Moscow and Pyongyang are still connected by rail (as I understand, several trailer cars for the Beijing train). But to take a ride from Moscow to the DPRK railway Russian tourists they can’t - these cars are intended only for North Korean residents working with us.
57. A typical city mural - there are a lot of them in North Korea.
58. Czech tram - and ordinary people. The DPRK is very good people- simple, sincere, kind, friendly, welcoming, hospitable. Later I will dedicate a separate post to the North Korean faces I snatched from the streets.
59. A pioneer tie, taken off after lessons, flutters in the May breeze.
60. Another Czech tram. However, the trams here are all so familiar to our eyes. :)
61. "South-Western"? "Vernadsky avenue"? “Strogino?” Or is it Pyongyang? :))))
62. But this is a really rare trolleybus!
63. Black Volga against the background of the Museum of the Patriotic Liberation War. There is a lot of our automobile industry in the DPRK - Volgas, military and civilian UAZs, S7s, MAZs, several years ago the DPRK bought a large batch of Gazelles and Priors from Russia. But, unlike the Soviet automobile industry, they are unhappy with them.
64. Another photo of the “dormitory” area.
65. In the previous photo you can see the agitator machine. Here it is larger - such cars constantly drive through the cities and villages of North Korea, slogans, speeches and appeals, or simply revolutionary music or marches, sound from morning to evening. Propaganda machines are designed to encourage the working people and inspire them to work even harder for the benefit of a brighter future.
66. And again the quarters of a socialist city.
67. Simple Soviet “Maz”...
68. ...And a tram from fraternal Czechoslovakia.
69. Final photos - Triumphal Arch in honor of the victory over Japan.
70. And this stadium very much reminded me of our Moscow Dynamo stadium. Back in the forties, when he was still brand new.
North Korea leaves ambiguous, very mixed feelings. And they accompany you constantly while you are here. I will return to walks around Pyongyang, and next time we will talk about a trip to the north of the country, to the Myohan Mountains, where we will see several ancient monasteries, visit the museum of gifts to Comrade Kim Il Sung, and visit the Renmun Cave with stalactites, stalagmites and a group of military men in one of the dungeons - and also just look at the unostentatious life of the DPRK outside the capital
Today we will take the first big tour of Pyongyang, and we will start with the holy of holies - the mausoleum of Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il. The mausoleum is located in the Kumsusan Palace, where Kim Il Sung once worked and which, after the death of the leader in 1994, was turned into a huge pantheon of memory. After the death of Kim Jong Il in 2011, his body was also placed in the Kumsusan Palace.
A trip to the mausoleum is a sacred ceremony in the life of any North Korean worker. Mostly people go there in organized groups - entire organizations, collective farms, military units, student classes. At the entrance to the pantheon, hundreds of groups anxiously await their turn. Foreign tourists are allowed to enter the mausoleum on Thursdays and Sundays - the guides also put foreigners in a reverent and solemn mood and warn about the need to dress as formally as possible. Our group, however, for the most part ignored this warning - well, we don’t have anything better than jeans and a shirt on our trip (I must say that in the DPRK they really don’t like jeans, considering them “American clothes”). But nothing - they let me in, naturally. But many other foreigners whom we saw in the mausoleum (Australians, Western Europeans), playing the role to the fullest, dressed very formally - lush funeral dresses, tuxedos with a bow tie...
You cannot take photographs inside the mausoleum and at all approaches to it - so I will try to simply describe what is happening inside. First, tourists wait in line in a small waiting pavilion for foreigners, then go to the common area, where they mingle with North Korean groups. At the entrance to the mausoleum itself, you need to hand over your phones and cameras, a very thorough search - you can only take heart medicine with you if in the state rooms with the leaders someone suddenly becomes ill from awe. And then we ride on a horizontal escalator along a long, very long corridor, the marble walls of which are hung with photographs of both leaders in all their greatness and heroism - photographs of different years are interspersed, from the young revolutionary times of Comrade Kim Il Sung to the last years of the reign of his son, Comrade Kim Jong Ira. In one of the places of honor near the end of the corridor, a photograph of Kim Jong Il in Moscow at a meeting with the then very youthful Russian president, taken in 2001, it seems, was noticed. This pompous long, very long corridor with huge portraits, along which the escalator travels for about 10 minutes, willy-nilly sets the mood for some kind of solemn mood. Even foreigners from another world are incensed - let alone the trembling local residents, for whom Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are gods.
From the inside, the Kumsusan Palace is divided into two halves - one is dedicated to Comrade Kim Il Sung, the other to Comrade Kim Jong Il. Huge marble halls decorated with gold, silver and jewelry, pompous corridors. The luxury and pomp of all this is quite difficult to describe. The bodies of the leaders lie in two huge, darkened marble halls, at the entrance to which you pass through another inspection line, where you are driven through streams of air in order to blow away the last specks of dust from the common people of this world before visiting the main sacred halls. Four people plus a guide approach directly to the bodies of the leaders - we go around the circle and bow. You need to bow to the floor when you are in front of the leader, as well as to the left and right - when you are behind the head of the leader, you do not need to bow. On Thursday and Sunday, foreign groups also come along with ordinary Korean workers - it is interesting to watch the reaction of North Koreans to the bodies of the leaders. Everyone is in the brightest ceremonial attire - peasants, workers, a lot of military men in uniform. Almost all women cry and wipe their eyes with handkerchiefs, men also often cry - the tears of young, thin village soldiers are especially striking. Many people experience hysterics in mourning halls... People cry touchingly and sincerely - however, they are brought up with this from birth.
After the halls where the bodies of the leaders are buried, the groups go through other halls of the palace and get acquainted with the awards - one hall is dedicated to the awards of Comrade Kim Il Sung, and the other to the awards of Comrade Kim Jong Il. Also shown are the personal belongings of the leaders, their cars, as well as two famous railway cars in which Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il traveled around the world, respectively. Separately, it is worth noting the Hall of Tears - the most pompous hall where the nation said goodbye to its leaders.
On the way back, we again drove for about 10 minutes along this long, very long corridor with portraits - it so happened that several foreign groups were driving us in a row, and towards the leaders, already sobbing and nervously fiddling with their scarves, were only Koreans - collective farmers. , workers, military... Hundreds of people rushed in front of us, going to the coveted meeting with the leaders. It was a meeting of two worlds - we looked at them, and they looked at us. I was very amazed by those minutes on the escalator. I slightly disturbed the chronological order here, because the day before we had already thoroughly traveled around the regions of the DPRK and got an idea about them - so I will give here what I wrote in the travel notebook upon leaving the mausoleum. “For them these are Gods. And this is the ideology of the country. At the same time, there is poverty in the country, denunciations, people are nothing. Taking into account the fact that almost everyone serves in the army for at least 5-7 years, and soldiers in the DPRK manually perform the most difficult work, including almost 100% of national construction, we can say that this is a slave-owning system, free labor. At the same time, the ideology presents that “the army helps the country, and we need even stricter discipline in the army and in the country in general to move towards a bright future”... And the country is on average at the level of the 1950s... But what palaces of the leaders! This is how to zombify society! After all, they, not knowing otherwise, really love them, they, if necessary, are ready to kill for Kim Il Sung and are ready to die themselves. Of course, it’s great to love your Motherland, to be a patriot of your country, you can also have a good or bad attitude towards this or that political figure. But how all this happens here is beyond the comprehension of modern man!”
You can take photographs in the square in front of the Kumsusan Palace - it is especially interesting to photograph people.
1. Women in ceremonial costumes go to the mausoleum.
2. Sculptural composition near the left wing of the palace.
4. Group photography with the mausoleum in the background.
5. Some take pictures, others impatiently wait for their turn.
6. I also took a photo for memory.
7. Pioneer bow to the leaders.
8. Peasants in ceremonial clothes wait in line at the entrance to the mausoleum.
9. Almost 100% of the male population of the DPRK is subject to military conscription for 5-7 years. At the same time, military personnel perform not only military work, but also general civilian work - they build everywhere, plow fields with oxen, work on collective and state farms. Women serve for one year and on a voluntary basis - naturally, there are many volunteers.
10. The front facade of the Kumsusan Palace.
11. The next stop is a memorial to the heroes of the struggle for liberation from Japan. Heavy rain…
14. The graves of the fallen stand on the mountainside in a checkerboard pattern - so that everyone buried here can see the panorama of Pyongyang from the top of Taesong Mountain.
15. The central place of the memorial is occupied by the revolutionary Kim Jong Suk, glorified in the DPRK - the first wife of Kim Il Sung, the mother of Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Suk died in 1949 at the age of 31 during her second birth.
16. After visiting the memorial, we will head to the suburbs of Pyongyang, the village of Mangyongdae, where Comrade Kim Il Sung was born and where his grandparents lived for a long time until the post-war years. This is one of the most sacred places in the DPRK.
19. A tragicomic story happened with this pot, crumpled during smelting - not realizing all its holiness, one of our tourists tapped it with his finger. And our guide Kim did not have time to warn that touching anything here is strictly prohibited. One of the memorial employees noticed this and called someone. A minute later, our Kim’s phone rang - the guide was called somewhere for work. We walked around the park for about forty minutes, accompanied by a driver and a second guide, a young guy who didn’t speak Russian. When it became really worrying about Kim, she finally appeared - upset and tearful. When asked what would happen to her now, she smiled sadly and quietly said, “What difference does it make?”... She felt so sorry for her at that moment...
20. While our guide Kim was at work, we walked a little in the park surrounding Mangyongdae. This mosaic panel depicts the young comrade Kim Il Sung leaving his home and leaving the country to fight the Japanese militarists who occupied Korea. And his grandparents saw him off in his native Mangyongdae.
21. The next item on the program is a monument to Soviet soldiers who took part in the liberation of Korea from Japan at the very end of World War II.
23. Behind the memorial to our soldiers, a huge park begins, stretching along the hills along the river for several kilometers. In one of the cozy green corners, a rare ancient monument was discovered - there are few historical monuments in Pyongyang, since the city suffered greatly during the Korean War of 1950-1953.
24. From the hill there is a beautiful view of the river - how familiar these wide avenues and panel buildings of high-rise buildings seem. But how surprisingly few cars there are!
25. The newest bridge over the Taedong River is the last of five bridges included in the post-war master plan for the development of Pyongyang. It was built in the 1990s.
26. Not far from the cable-stayed bridge is the largest May Day Stadium in the DPRK with a capacity of 150,000, where major sporting competitions are held and the famous Arirang festival is held.
27. Just a couple of hours ago, I left the mausoleum slightly in a negative mood, which intensified after the higher authorities got into trouble because of some pot of our unfortunate escort. But as soon as you walk around the park, look at the people, your mood changes. Children play in a cozy park...
28. A middle-aged intellectual, secluded on a Sunday afternoon in the shade, studies the works of Kim Il Sung...
29. Does it remind you of anything? :)
30. Today is Sunday - and the city park is full of vacationers. People play volleyball, just sit on the grass...
31. And the hottest thing on Sunday afternoon was on the open dance floor - both local youth and older Korean workers were having a blast. How brilliantly they performed their bizarre movements!
33. This little guy danced the best.
34. We also joined the dancers for about 10 minutes - and they happily accepted us. This is what an alien guest looks like at a disco in North Korea! :)
35. After a walk through the park, we will return to the center of Pyongyang. From the observation deck of the Juche Idea Monument (remember, which glows in the night and which I photographed from the hotel window) there are wonderful views of Pyongyang. Let's enjoy the panorama! So, a socialist city as it is! :)
37. Much is already familiar - for example, the Central Library named after Comrade Kim Il Sung.
39. Cable-stayed bridge and stadium.
41. Incredible impressions - quite our Soviet landscapes. Tall buildings, wide streets and avenues. But how few people are on the streets. And almost no cars! It’s as if, thanks to a time machine, we were transported 30-40 years ago!
42. A new super hotel for foreign tourists and high-ranking guests is being completed.
43. "Ostankino" tower.
44. The most comfortable five-star hotel in Pyongyang - naturally, for foreigners.
45. And this is our hotel “Yangakdo” - four stars. I look now - how reminiscent it is of the high-rise building of the Moscow Design Institute where I work! :))))
46. At the foot of the monument to the Juche Ideas there are sculptural compositions of workers.
48. In the 36th photo you may have noticed an interesting monument. This is the Workers' Party of Korea Monument. The dominant feature of the sculptural composition is the sickle, hammer and brush. Everything is more or less clear with the hammer and sickle, but the brush in North Korea symbolizes the intelligentsia.
50. Inside the composition there is a panel, in the central part of which the “progressive socialist world masses” are shown, who are fighting against the “bourgeois puppet government of South Korea” and are moving the “occupied southern territories torn apart by class struggle” towards socialism and inevitable unification with the DPRK.
51. These are the South Korean masses.
52. This is the progressive intelligentsia of South Korea.
53. This appears to be an episode of ongoing armed struggle.
54. A gray-haired veteran and a young pioneer.
55. Sickle, hammer and brush - collective farmer, worker and intellectual.
56. In conclusion of today’s post, I would like to give some more scattered photographs of Pyongyang, taken while moving around the city. Facades, episodes, artifacts. Let's start from Pyongyang Station. By the way, Moscow and Pyongyang are still connected by rail (as I understand, several trailer cars for the Beijing train). But Russian tourists cannot travel from Moscow to the DPRK by rail - these cars are intended only for North Korean residents working with us.
61. "South-Western"? "Vernadsky avenue"? “Strogino?” Or is it Pyongyang? :))))
62. But this is a really rare trolleybus!
63. Black Volga against the background of the Museum of the Patriotic Liberation War. There is a lot of our automobile industry in the DPRK - Volgas, military and civilian UAZs, S7s, MAZs, several years ago the DPRK bought a large batch of Gazelles and Priors from Russia. But, unlike the Soviet automobile industry, they are unhappy with them.
64. Another photo of the “dormitory” area.
65. In the previous photo you can see the agitator machine. Here it is larger - such cars constantly drive through the cities and villages of North Korea, slogans, speeches and appeals, or simply revolutionary music or marches, sound from morning to evening. Propaganda machines are designed to encourage the working people and inspire them to work even harder for the benefit of a brighter future.
66. And again the quarters of a socialist city.
67. Simple Soviet “Maz”...
68. ...And a tram from fraternal Czechoslovakia.
69. Final photos - Arc de Triomphe in honor of the victory over Japan.
70. And this stadium very much reminded me of our Moscow Dynamo stadium. Back in the forties, when he was still brand new.
North Korea leaves ambiguous, very mixed feelings. And they accompany you constantly while you are here. I will return to walks around Pyongyang, and next time we will talk about a trip to the north of the country, to the Myohan Mountains, where we will see several ancient monasteries, visit the museum of gifts to Comrade Kim Il Sung, and visit the Renmun Cave with stalactites, stalagmites and a group of military men in one of the dungeons - and also just look at the unostentatious life of the DPRK outside the capital.
1. Lenin Mausoleum An integral attribute of the Red Square ensemble was first opened on January 27, 1924 - on the day of the funeral of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. The funeral organization committee, headed by Felix Dzerzhinsky, initially decided to embalm the body of the leader of the world revolution for three days. From January 23 to 27, he was placed in the Hall of Columns, where about half a million people came. The idea to extend the farewell and display the coffin with the body near the Kremlin wall was adopted on January 25 at the presidium of the Central Election Commission. Photo credit: Dennis Jarvis. The mausoleum was installed near the Senate Tower of the Kremlin. It was a wooden building in the form of a cube, which, like an Egyptian ziggurat, was crowned with a three-stage pyramid. A few months later, this version of the mausoleum was replaced by another: a 9-meter wooden step pyramid, the length of which was 18 meters. But this temporary structure did not last long. 5 years later, construction began on the third, final version. The previous building was taken as the basis for the new mausoleum. The stone monumental room, lined with granite, marble and labradorite, was completed in 1930. The author of this project, like the previous ones, was Alexey Viktorovich Shchusev. 2. Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il North Korea knows firsthand what a cult of personality is and how to create it. Even when the universally revered head of state goes to the next world. When “Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung”, the founder and permanent leader of the DPRK, to whom monuments were erected during his lifetime, universities were named after him and his portrait was placed on banknotes, died at the age of 82 (July 8, 1994), the funeral was, to put it mildly , grandiose. Photo by: Mark Scott Johnson. On this tragic date for the country, national mourning began, which lasted three years. The press said that under the weight of this loss, the Earth lost some of its weight and almost lost its orbit. Following the order of Kim Jong Il, the “eternal president” of Korea was buried in the place where he spent most of his time - in the Kumsusan residence in Pyongyang. His embalmed body, “covered” by the flag of the Workers' Party of Korea, rests under a transparent glass sarcophagus. Photo by: Gilad Rom. Not only citizens of the socialist republic, but also tourists who bought a state tour can honor Kim Il Sung. Visitors' video and photographic equipment is confiscated and they are searched through a metal detector. The dress code must be followed, as well as strict rules of conduct. Even if someone does not know about the leader’s merits, the audio guide will tell you about them, as well as one of the halls containing numerous awards of Kim Il Sung. On December 29, 2011, the “Eternal President of the DPRK” (posthumous title) was accompanied by his son Kim Jong Il at the Kumsusan Memorial Complex. 3. Mausoleum of Mao Zedong In neighboring China there is a mausoleum in which the body of no less legendary statesman- “Great Helmsman” Mao Zedong. He died on September 9, 1976 at the age of 83. On the day of the funeral, more than a million people came to say goodbye to the leader of the People's Republic of China. Despite the fact that Mao was a supporter of cremation, it was decided to embalm his body and put it on public display a year after his death. Photo by: Jorge Lascar. The capital's Tiananmen Square, the heart of the Chinese nation, was chosen as the location for the tomb. The mausoleum, impressive in size (260 m by 220 m), was erected on May 24, 1977, and opened in September of the same year - on the first anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong. 700 thousand people took part in the construction, performing symbolic volunteer work for free. Materials for the giant structure with 44 granite columns were brought from all over the country. Even rocks from Everest were used in national construction. 30 years after the opening of the mausoleum, about 160 million people visited the mausoleum, and this number continues to grow. Those who want to look at Mao’s incorruptible body first find themselves in a courtyard where they can buy flowers. Having passed the North Hall with a marble statue of a smiling seated Zedong, the visitor finds himself in a room with a crystal sarcophagus, where the great leader lies under a red flag with a hammer and sickle. 4. Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh In the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, on Badinh Square stands the 21-meter mausoleum of the first president of North Vietnam. The place for the tomb was not chosen by chance - on September 2, 1945, Ho Chi Minh proclaimed independence here. Political figure died September 2, 1969. He, like Mao Zedong, wished to be cremated. However, by the decision of his successor Le Duan, the leader's body was embalmed. Specialists from Moscow were invited for such a delicate procedure. However, as well as for the construction of a mausoleum. It is said that the inspiration was Lenin's mausoleum. Photo credit: Padmanaba01. Interestingly, for a long time the body of Ho Chi Minh was hidden for fear of its capture by the Americans during the Vietnam War. Only in 1975 was it placed in a glass sarcophagus in the central hall of the mausoleum. The pediment of the two-story gray marble building is crowned with the inscription “President Ho Chi Minh.” Those wishing to honor the memory of the iconic head of the Vietnamese Communist Party must follow a number of strict rules. Among these are strict clothing that covers the legs, a ban on the use of photo and video equipment, and maintaining silence. As for your hands, they must be taken out of your pockets. 5. Mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk The first president of the Turkish Republic rests in the center of the capital on Rasattepe Hill in the Anitkabir Mausoleum, which means “memorial grave” in Turkish. It was opened on September 1, 1953 - 15 years after the death of Mustafa Kemal (November 10, 1938). Previously, the “father of the Turks” (translation of the surname Ataturk) was buried on the territory of the Ethnography Museum in Ankara. About 50 people took part in the competition to create the mausoleum. The honor fell to Turkish architects Emin Khalid Onat and Ahmed Orhan Ardu. Photo by: Nezih Durmazlar. The result of them collaboration became a 17-meter one-story building with majestic columns. Memorial complex, the area of which is 750 thousand square meters, complemented by a park and museum, as well as a gigantic Ceremonial Square with a capacity of 15,000 people. Along the 262-meter-long Road of Lions, the visitor enters the mausoleum, whose dimensions are 41.65 by 57.35 meters. Ataturk's body rests under a 40-ton sarcophagus, decorated with white marble from Afyon, in an octagonal chamber in a special hall in the basement. In addition, the successor and second president of Turkey, Mustafa İsmet İnönü, rests in Anıtkabir. 6. Mausoleum of Che Guevara In the unremarkable Cuban town of Santa Clara, 270 kilometers from Havana, there is a mausoleum of a man who became a permanent symbol of the revolution. It contains Ernesto Guevara de la Serna. On October 17, 1997, his remains were reburied in the memorial complex along with comrades who, along with Che, were killed during the guerrilla campaign in Bolivia. After tragic death, which occurred on October 9, 1967, the commandant’s body was secretly buried in a mass grave next to the dirt runway near the Bolivian city of Vallegrande. Photo by: Guillaume Baviere. 30 years later, the coffin with the remains was transported to Cuba, where construction of a mausoleum for the national hero began in 1982. About 500 thousand Santa Clara residents worked on it for free. In 1988, the complex was ready and waiting for its hero. It was in this city that Che Guevara won one of the decisive battles for the Cuban revolution. A 15-meter bas-relief will tell about this and other heroic events from the life of the commander. Next to him stands a 7-meter bronze statue of a revolutionary with a rifle in right hand, and below it is a crypt and a museum with personal belongings of the legendary Argentinean.
On January 27, 1924, the coffin with Lenin’s body was placed in a wooden mausoleum built in a matter of days on Red Square. The decision not to bury the body is not unprecedented: earlier cases of embalming are known. But not in relation to personalities of this magnitude. However, the example of the leader of the world proletariat turned out to be contagious. Over the next half century, the bodies of many political figures were mummified.
1. Joseph Stalin
Lenin's successor died on March 5, 1953; four days later the coffin was transported on a gun carriage from the House of Unions to Red Square. At noon, an artillery salute thundered over the Kremlin, and the whole country fell silent for five minutes. Stalin’s body lay in the mausoleum until 1961, until the 22nd Congress of the CPSU decided that “Stalin’s serious violations of Lenin’s covenants, abuse of power, mass repressions against honest Soviet people and other actions during the period of the cult of personality make it impossible to leave the coffin with his body in the Mausoleum IN AND. Lenin". A day later, Stalin was buried near the Kremlin wall.
2. Mao Zedong
The tomb of the long-time leader of the People's Republic of China is one of the main attractions of Beijing. The mausoleum was erected in Tiananmen Square in 1977. The area of the structure is more than 57 thousand square meters. In addition to the hall for visitors, where the crystal coffin with the mummified corpse of Mao is placed, the mausoleum houses a hall of revolutionary achievements, and on the second floor there is a cinema hall. They show there documentary"Tosca", dedicated to the life of an idol.
3. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il
After the founder of the North Korean state, Kim Il Sung, passed away in 1994, his son Kim Jong Il ordered the leader’s residence to be converted into a mausoleum. Officially it is called Geumsusan Sun Memorial Palace. In 2011, the body of Kim Jong Il was placed next to the sarcophagus of the Eternal President of the DPRK. It is forbidden to take photographs, talk loudly or appear in bright clothes in the mausoleum.
4. Ho Chi Minh
The first president of North Vietnam asked in his will to be cremated, place his ashes in three ceramic urns and bury them in different parts of the country. But his will was not fulfilled. When the politician died in 1969, Soviet specialists embalmed his body. At first the mummy was kept in secret place, to protect against American bombing during the Vietnam War, and the glass coffin was moved to the mausoleum in Hanoi six years after the death of Ho Chi Minh. There is a garden around the tomb, where about 250 species of flora from various regions of Vietnam grow.
5. Georgiy Dimitrov
General Secretary of the Bulgarian Central Committee communist party, who was called the “Bulgarian Lenin,” died in 1949 in Barvikha, near Moscow, where he came for treatment. The body was taken to Sofia, embalmed and placed in a mausoleum. There it lay until 1990, when the communist regime fell. At the request of relatives (according to official version) Dimitrov was reburied and the crypt was demolished.
6. Eva Peron
Eva was the wife of Argentine President Juan Peron, for her active civil position she was considered the spiritual leader of the nation. The woman died at the age of 33 from cancer, and her embalmed body was put on public display. After the overthrow of Juan Peron in 1955, the mummy was transported to Milan and buried. Having regained the presidency, Peron sent Eva’s body home and placed it in the family crypt.
