Ok, so we carry on.
Entrances to the subways look somewhat shabby.
Inside you have the tourniquets that arrive you to the knee, contrary to chinese Koreans are of short stature. The sign reads: Kim Jong IL - the Sun of 21st century!
The escalator is very long, and the lighting is original.
Trains are made of 4 wagons, the doors are opened by hand and closed automatically.
It seems that the goal of the NK architects was to make stations more impressive that Moscow's metro.
The particularity of the cities is the lack of cars. Everyone is walking, sometimes they take packed public transportatins made of tramways, trolleys and even 2 storie buses. The bicycles are rare and expensive.
The pedestrian zebra is original.
In Pyongyang there is a lot of underground passages for crossing the street, everyone respects the rules, if you cross the street where you're not supposed to you get a fine, even if the road usually looks like this.
Traffic signs warn you of other traffic signs.
The drivers never stop in front of pedestrians, they constantly honk. The guide coulnt not explain the lack of reflex of the pedetrians when they hear a car. In the countryside people walk wherever they want, like there is no cars at all.
The drivers on the other hand never chek their mirrors or look back. For some reason the gas stations are covered up and passangers must exit the car before the driver goes to the gas station.
Drive safe!
Line at the bus stop, people who take the bus are those who have to walk more than 30 mins toget home
You can't move freely in NK, you need authorisations, and you have check-points everywhere. When the car crossed teh check point, the driver flashed the lights, perhaps its a meaning that a forigner is on board.
Traffic lights exist but they dont work.
How cars in NK look like. The sign is not lying
A common sight, broken down gas-fueled truck, they drive slow and make a lot of smoke. You're not supposed to take that picture.
Sometimes you see japanese or german cars. Koreans love Mercedes Benz, which they only know as Benz. Benz - is the favorite car of NK leaders. In Kim Il song mausoleum , his SEL 500 is parked forever on some porcelain supports. Maybe the love for benz will explain the following pictures
Benz!
Benz!
Bad photoshop in Korea magazine.
The other side
Fresh news.
Portait of Father and Son (to be found in every home)
Kim Il Song really loved girls.
He build them playgrounds.
And put a room full of old consoles in the model pioneer palace (in which the escalator was turned on when the forigners arrived)
Village where Kim Il Song, spend a night during his youth.
And thats another village, but those houses don't exist in NK, the driver took a wrong turn.
Sometimes you get to see a martian landscape
Beaches of NK
Sign of service
Culture house of a model collective farm
Another culture house
Somewhere
The hotel, construction was abandoned in 1991, its not recomended to take pictures of it when you're close.
That's ok we'll admire it from far.
Koreans have the habit to walk with their hands behind their back, men rarely wear light and flashy colors. Thats an excusion to the cemetary of the revolutionaries Apartment buildings are modest too.
A rare view of Pyongyang.
5.1 means May 1st, they don't do big celebrations.
All the forigners got to visit the main park, locals were denied admission
Those who were smarter didn't go to the park and instead relaxed by the river.
Thank you for those pictures, very impressive. It's incredible, this country seems to be just gray, gray, gray. Even when the sun shines and the grass is green and police women are wearing blue uniforms, it's just gray.
BTW what about that photoshoped picture? I don't get it.
Thanks a lot for the translation. I hope the orginal style is as enjoyable as your english version. I'd love to buy travel guides written by this Russian guy.
Everything is grey because there are no advertisements.
The original text was funnier and longer, last time i tried to make a full translation out of it, MP.net logged me out and i lost everything. So this I only kept the main ideas. I also like his travel stories because they have nothing to do with postal-card pretty pictures, what you get is a look at daily life.As for the photoshopped picture, the clone tool was badly used to cover up something so the road and the fence are not straight.
Just great pictures, I can't belive it is real North Koreans are really poor people. Those photos remind Poland in 60's maybe. But i've liked one thing: NK Metro - looks very nice And that road blocks for enmy tanks are LOL too.
Thanks a lot for such moving pictures. Thanks to bravery of the author I could see some new views which could help develop my knowledge about the only real prision-state in the world.