On a recent four-day weekend, nearly 100 Russians ventured to a place no foreign travelers had entered since the start of the pandemic: North Korea.
The tourists visited Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square, named after the North Korean founder. They watched a youth musical performance where a girl sang in a traditional hanbok outfit. And they hit the country’s premier ski slopes.
Travelers, according to two online accounts, faced fewer restrictions than expected during the trip from Feb. 9 to Feb. 12. But some rules were nonnegotiable: They were supervised when they left their hotel and they had to pay for everything in Chinese yuan or U.S. dollars—no Russian rubles allowed.
It is no coincidence that Russian nationals were the first foreign tourists to the country since the Kim Jong Un regime slammed its borders closed in early 2020. The two countries have significantly deepened economic and military ties since President Vladimir Putin hosted Kim in Russia for a rare summit last September.
North Korea has provided Russia with munitions and dozens of short-range ballistic missiles that are being fired in Ukraine, according to assessments from Washington, Seoul and Kyiv. Senior officials from Moscow and Pyongyang have been meeting regularly, and Putin is set to visit North Korea “at an early date,” according to North Korean state media.
Putin has also promised assistance for North Korea’s satellite endeavors. But the batch of Russian tourists—and the promise of more soon—illustrates the many ways the two countries can help each other out.
Iliia Voskresenskii, a 33-year-old Russian YouTuber who was on the recent trip, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the group spent one night in Pyongyang. The next two nights unfolded at the Masikryong Ski Resort, which features everything from Swedish snowblowers to Swiss gondolas, he said. The resort was built to the orders of the Swiss-educated Kim, who said the skiing ground should provide “highly civilized and happy living conditions” to the people.
In Pyongyang, as Voskresenskii rode on a bus with other tourists, he rarely saw any cars on the roads. The local guides took the Russian tour group only to places where they didn’t come in contact with any ordinary North Koreans.
At a souvenir shop, Voskresenskii saw postcards with anti-American slogans and he decided to buy a North Korean version of a Lego toy for his children, forking over U.S. dollars as part of the transaction. Most of the toys were military-themed items such as tanks, and Voskresenskii chose a rocket. When he watched a performance of young children playing the accordion, he couldn’t help but doubt their smiles.
“This sense that everything is unreal, that the entire country is some kind of never-ending theatrical show, never left,” Voskresenskii said.
Tourism in North Korea before Covid-19 hit was a critical moneymaker for the Kim regime, since it brought in foreign currency and represented one of the few economic industries untouched by international sanctions. Kim made tourism a priority after taking power in late 2011, pushing vacation packages with North Korea’s luxury hotels, beach resorts and marathons.