The real North Korea. The secret life of ordinary people

North Korean counters

The lives of ordinary Koreans in the DPRK are protected from outsiders as a military secret. Journalists can only look at her from a safe distance - through the glass of the bus. And breaking through this glass is an incredibly difficult task. You cannot go to the city on your own: only with a guide, only by agreement, but there is no agreement. It took five days to persuade the accompanying people to take a ride to the center.

Taxis go to the center. The drivers are incredibly happy to see passengers - almost no one uses their services at the hotel. It is impossible to order a taxi for a foreigner in the DPRK. They take us to a shopping center on Kwan Bo Avenue - something like New Arbat in Moscow. The store is special - there are two red signs above the entrance. Kim Jong Il was here twice and Kim Jong Un came here once. The shopping center resembles a typical Soviet Central Department Store: a three-story concrete cube with high windows.

Inside, the atmosphere is like in the main department store of a small Russian city. There is a supermarket on the ground floor. There's a line at the cash register. There are a lot of people, maybe even an unnaturally large number. Everyone is actively filling large carts with groceries.

I study the prices: a kilo of pork 22,500 won, chicken 17,500 won, rice 6,700 won, vodka 4,900 won. If you remove a couple of zeros, then prices in North Korea are almost the same as in Russia, only vodka is cheaper. It’s a strange story with prices in the DPRK. The minimum wage for a worker is 1,500 won. A pack of instant noodles costs 6,900 won.

How so? - I ask the translator.

He is silent for a long time.

Consider it like we simply forgot about two zeros. - after thinking, he answers.

Local money

And in terms of prices, the official life of the DPRK does not coexist with the real one. The won exchange rate for foreigners is 1 dollar - 100 won, and the real exchange rate is 8,900 won per dollar. An example can be illustrated on a bottle of North Korean energy drink - this is a non-carbonated ginseng decoction. In a hotel and in a store it costs completely different money.

Local residents look at store prices through the lens of denomination. That is, two zeros are subtracted from the price tag. Or rather, adding two zeros to your salary. With this approach, the situation with wages and prices will more or less normalize. And either noodles cost 69 won instead of 6900. Or the minimum wage for a worker is not 1,500, but 150,000 won, about 17 dollars. The question remains: who is buying food carts at the mall and using what? It looks like they are not workers and definitely not foreigners.

Foreigners in the DPRK do not use the local currency, the won. In the hotel, although prices are indicated in won, you can pay in dollars, euros or yuan. Moreover, there may be a situation where you pay in euros and receive change in Chinese money. North Korean money is banned. In souvenir shops you can buy old wons from 1990. Real won are hard to find, but not impossible.

They differ only in the aged Kim Il Sung.

However, real money from the DPRK is of little use to a foreigner - sellers simply will not accept it. And it is prohibited to take national money out of the country.

On the second floor of the shopping center they sell colorful dresses. On the third, parents lined up in a tight formation at the children's play corner. Kids ride down slides and play with balls. Parents film them on their phones. The phones are different, a couple of times quite expensive mobile phones from a well-known Chinese brand flash in my hands. And once I notice a phone that looks like a South Korean flagship. However, the DPRK knows how to surprise and mislead, and sometimes strange things happen - on an excursion to the red corner of a cosmetics factory, a modest guide suddenly flashes in his hands what seems to be the latest model of Apple phone. But if you take a closer look - no, it seemed like it was a Chinese device similar to it.

On the top floor there is a typical row of cafes for shopping centers: visitors eat burgers, potatoes, Chinese noodles, and drink Taedongan light draft beer - one type, no alternative. But they are not allowed to film it. Having enjoyed the abundance of people, we go out into the street.

Pyongyang in style

A new Lada is parked on the sidewalk, as if by chance. Domestic cars are rare for the DPRK. Is this a coincidence - or was the car parked here specifically for guests?

People are walking along the street: many pioneers and pensioners. Passers-by are not afraid of the video recording. A man and a woman, who appear to be 40 years old, are leading a little girl by the hands. They say they are walking with their daughter. Koreans get married late - no earlier than 25–30 years old.

A cyclist in black glasses and a khaki shirt rides by. Girls in long skirts pass by. Girls in the DPRK are prohibited from wearing miniskirts and revealing outfits. The streets of Pyongyang are guarded by "fashion patrols". Elderly ladies have the right to catch violating fashionistas and hand them over to the police. The only truly striking item in the wardrobe of Korean women is the sun umbrella. They can even be flamboyantly colorful.

Korean women love cosmetics. But mostly it's not makeup, but skin care products. As elsewhere in Asia, face whitening is in vogue here. Cosmetics are made in Pyongyang. And the state is closely monitoring her.

In the depths of Pyongyang's main cosmetics factory there is a secret rack. Hundreds of bottles and bottles: Italian eye shadows, Austrian shampoos, French creams and perfumes. The “banned product,” which cannot be bought in the country, is sent to the factory personally by Kim Jong-un. He demands that Korean cosmetologists and perfumers take cues from Western brands.

Men in Korea often wear gray, black and khaki. Bright outfits are rare. In general, the fashion is the same. There are no people who clearly oppose themselves to those around them. Even jeans are illegal, only trousers are black or gray. Shorts are also not allowed on the street. And a man with piercings, tattoos, dyed or long hair is impossible in the DPRK. Decorations interfere with building a bright future.

Other children

Another thing is North Korean children. Little residents of the DPRK are not like boring adults. They wear outfits of all colors of the rainbow. The girls have pink dresses. The boys are wearing ripped jeans. Or a T-shirt with not a portrait of Kim Jong Il, but an American Batman badge. The children look as if they have escaped from another world. They even talk about something else.

What do you like most about the DPRK? - I ask the kid with Batman on his jacket. And I'm waiting to hear the names of the leaders.

The boy looks at me shyly, but suddenly smiles.

Toys and walks! - he says somewhat confused.

Koreans explain why kids look so bright and adults look so bland. There are no serious demands placed on children. Until school age, they can dress in whatever they want. But from the first grade, children are taught to live a proper life and explained how everything in the world works. Rules of behavior, way of thinking and adult dress code change their lives.

Street life

There is a stall near the shopping center. Koreans buy DVDs with films - they contain new releases from the DPRK. There is a story about partisans, a drama about an innovator in production, and a lyrical comedy about a girl who became a guide in the museum named after the great Kim Il Sung. DVD players are very popular in North Korea.

But flash drives with films banned by the party are an article. For example, the article covers South Korean TV series. Of course, ordinary Koreans find such films and watch them on the sly. But the state is struggling with this. And he is gradually transferring local computers to the North Korean analogue of the Linux operating system with its own code. This is so that third-party media cannot be played.

A nearby stall sells snacks.

These are the buns that workers buy during their breaks,” the saleswoman says joyfully and hands over a bag of cakes that resemble portions of shortbread cookies with jam.

“Everything is local,” she adds and shows the barcode on the package “86” – made in the DPRK. On the counter is “pesot” - popular homemade pies, shaped like khinkali, but with cabbage inside.

A tram arrives at the stop. A crowd of passengers surrounds him. Behind the stop there is a bike rental. In some ways it is similar to Moscow.

One minute - 20 won. You can rent a bike using this token,” a pretty girl in the window explains the conditions to me.

Having said this, she takes out a thick notebook. And hands it to my translator. He makes a note in his notebook. Apparently, this is a catalog for registering foreigners. A cyclist in black glasses and a khaki shirt stands by the side of the road. And I realize that this is the same cyclist who passed me more than an hour ago. He looks carefully in my direction.

It’s time for us to go to the hotel,” says the translator.

Internet and cellular communications

The Internet that is shown to foreigners resembles a local network, which used to be popular in residential areas. It connected several blocks, and films and music were exchanged there. Koreans do not have access to the global Internet.

You can access the internal network from your smartphone - there is even a North Korean messenger. But there's nothing else in particular. However, cellular communications have only been available to residents of the country for ten years.

The DPRK's internal Internet is no place for fun. There are websites of government agencies, universities and organizations. All resources have been reviewed by the Ministry of State Security. The DPRK does not have its own bloggers or truth-tellers on the Internet.

Memes, social networks, swearing in the comments - these are alien concepts to the capitalist world. I toured different computer labs. Some run on Windows, some on Linux. But not a single computer can access the Internet. Although the browsers there are well-known, there is even a local DPRK browser. But search histories are not names of sites, but sets of IP addresses. Although there is an Internet for journalists: global, fast and insanely expensive.

Dog's dinner

Koreans eat dogs. South Koreans are a little ashamed of this. But in the north they are proud of it. In response to all the indignant remarks, they ask why eating a dog is worse than eating a beef cutlet, pork kebab or lamb soup. Goats, sheep and cows are also cute pets. Just like dogs.

For Koreans, dog meat is not only exotic, but also medicinal. According to tradition, it was eaten in the heat, in the midst of field work, “to expel heat from the body.” Here, apparently, the principle “knocks out fire with fire” works here: the hot and spicy dog ​​meat stew burned the body so much that relief followed and work became easier.

Koreans do not eat all dogs - and pets do not go under the knife. Although it was not possible to see the dog (with or without its owner) on the streets of Pyongyang. Dogs for the table are raised on special farms. And for foreigners it is served in the hotel cafe. They are not on the regular menu, but you can ask for them. The dish is called Tangogi. They bring dog broth, fried and spicy dog ​​meat, and a selection of sauces. All this must be mixed and eaten with rice. You can drink it with hot tea. However, Koreans often wash everything down with rice vodka.

The taste of the dog, if you try to describe the dish, is reminiscent of spicy and insipid lamb. The dish, to be honest, is incredibly spicy, but very tasty - may particularly scrupulous dog breeders forgive me.

Souvenir, magnet, poster

A souvenir from the DPRK is a strange combination in itself. It seems that it is impossible to bring sweet tourist delights from such a closed and regulated country. In fact it is possible, but not much. Firstly, ginseng fans will feel at ease in the DPRK. In the country they make everything from it: teas, vodka, medicines, cosmetics, seasonings.

Lovers of alcoholic beverages won't have much fun. Strong alcohol - or specific alcohol, like rice vodka, which, according to people in the know, gives a strong hangover. Or exotic, like drinks with a snake or seal penis. Drinks like beer exist in two or three varieties and differ little from the average Russian samples. They don't produce grape wine in the DPRK; they do have plum wine.

There are catastrophically few types of magnets in the DPRK, or rather, one with the national flag. No other pictures - neither of leaders nor of landmarks - will decorate your refrigerator. But you can buy a figurine: “a monument to the ideas of Juche” or the flying horse Chollima (emphasis on the last syllable) - this is a North Korean Pegasus carrying the ideas of Juche. There are also stamps and postcards - there you can find images of leaders. Unfortunately, the famous Kim pins are not for sale. A badge with the national flag is the only loot of a foreigner. In general, that's all - the assortment is not large.

Exotic lovers can buy themselves a souvenir passport of the DPRK. This is certainly a nomination for the most original dual citizenship.

Bright tomorrow

It feels like North Korea is now on the verge of big changes. What they will be is unknown. But it seems that reluctantly, a little fearfully, the country is opening up. Rhetoric and attitudes towards the world around us are changing.

On the one hand, the DPRK authorities continue to build their inhabited island. A fortress-state, closed from all external forces. On the other hand, they are increasingly talking not about fighting to the bitter end and to the last soldier, but about the well-being of the people. And the people are drawn to this prosperity.

At the next cafe table three Koreans are sitting and drinking. They are wearing nondescript gray trousers. In plain polo shirts. Above everyone’s heart is a scarlet badge with leaders. And on the hand of the one who is closest is a gold Swiss watch. Not the most expensive - costing a couple of thousand euros.

But with the average salary in the DPRK, you will have to work for this accessory for a couple of lifetimes without days off. And only Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il live forever. However, the owner of the watch wears it calmly, perceiving it as something normal. For him, this is already a new, established reality of the Juche country.

Of course, in a society of demonstrative universal equality, there are always those who are significantly more equal. But it seems that the country is facing a closed door to a new world. The people of the DPRK have been frightened by this world for a long time, but in the near future they may have to open this door and face the new world face to face.

Last time I also wrote about one of the eastern countries: . And about North Korea here on the website. Read more.

Human society is constantly experimenting with how it can arrange itself in such a way that most of its members would be as comfortable as possible.

From the outside, this probably looks like the attempts of a rheumatic fat man to make himself more comfortable on a flimsy couch with sharp corners: no matter how he turns, the poor fellow will certainly pinch something on himself, or he will serve time.

Not to express deep respect to the image of the leader is to endanger not only yourself, but also your entire family.

Some particularly desperate experiments were costly. Take, for example, the 20th century. The entire planet was a gigantic testing ground where two systems clashed in rivalry. Society is against individuality, totalitarianism is against democracy, order is against chaos. As we know, chaos won, which is not surprising. You see, it takes a lot of effort to ruin chaos, while the most perfect order can be destroyed with one well-placed bowl of chili.

Order does not tolerate mistakes, but chaos... chaos feeds on them.

Love of freedom is a vile quality that interferes with ordered happiness

A demonstration defeat took place at two experimental sites. Two countries were taken: one in Europe, the second in Asia. Germany and Korea were neatly divided in half and in both cases the market, elections, freedom of speech and individual rights were introduced in one half, while the other half was ordered to build an ideally fair and well-functioning social system in which the individual has the only right - to serve the common good.

However, the German experiment went unsuccessfully from the very beginning. Even Hitler did not completely exterminate the cultural traditions of the freedom-loving Germans - where does Honecker belong? And it is difficult to create a socialist society right in the middle of the swamp of decaying capitalism. It is not surprising that the GDR, no matter how much effort and money was poured into it, did not demonstrate any brilliant success; it produced the most pathetic economy, and its inhabitants, instead of being filled with a competitive spirit, preferred to run to their Western relatives, masquerading at the border as the contents of their suitcases.

The Korean site promised great success. Still, the Asian mentality is historically more inclined towards subordination and total control, and even more so if we are talking about Koreans, who lived under Japanese protectorate for almost half a century and have long since forgotten all freedoms.

Juche forever

Kim Il Sung at the beginning of his reign.

After a series of rather bloody political upheavals, the former captain of the Soviet Army, Kim Il Sung, became the almost sole ruler of the DPRK. He was once a partisan who fought against the Japanese occupation, then, like many Korean communists, he ended up in the USSR and in 1945 returned to his homeland to build a new order. Knowing the Stalinist regime well, he managed to recreate it in Korea, and the copy in many ways surpassed the original.

The entire population of the country was divided into 51 groups according to social origin and degree of loyalty to the new regime. Moreover, unlike the USSR, it was not even kept silent that the very fact of your birth in the “wrong” family can be a crime: exiles and camps here for more than half a century have officially sent not only criminals, but also all members of their families, including minors children. The main ideology of the state became the “Juche idea,” which, with some stretch, can be translated as “self-reliance.” The essence of ideology comes down to the following provisions.

North Korea is the greatest country in the world. Very good. All other countries are bad. There are very bad ones, and there are inferior ones who are in slavery to the very bad ones. There are also countries that are not exactly bad, but also bad. For example, China and the USSR. They followed the path of communism, but distorted it, and this is wrong.

The characteristic features of a Caucasian are always signs of an enemy.

Only North Koreans live happily, all other peoples eke out a miserable existence. The most unhappy country in the world is South Korea. It has been taken over by the damned imperialist bastards, and all South Koreans are divided into two categories: jackals, vile minions of the regime, and oppressed pathetic beggars who are too cowardly to drive out the Americans.

The greatest man in the world is the great leader Kim Il Sung*. He liberated the country and expelled the damned Japanese. He is the wisest man on Earth. He is a living god. That is, he is already lifeless, but this does not matter, because he is forever alive. Everything you have was given to you by Kim Il Sung. The second great man is the son of the great leader Kim Il Sung, the beloved leader Kim Jong Il. The third is the current owner of the DPRK, the grandson of the great leader, the brilliant comrade Kim Jong-un. We express our love for Kim Il Sung through hard work. We love to work. We also love to learn the Juche idea.

• By the way, in Korea we would have been sent to a camp for this phrase. Because Koreans are taught from kindergarten that the name of the great leader Kim Il Sung must appear at the beginning of the sentence. Damn, this one would have been exiled too...

We North Koreans are great happy people. Hooray!

Magic levers

Kim Il Sung and his closest aides were, of course, crocodiles. But these crocodiles had good intentions. They were really trying to create an ideally happy society. And when is a person happy? From the point of view of order theory, a person is happy when he takes his place, knows exactly what to do, and is satisfied with the existing state of affairs. Unfortunately, the one who created people made many mistakes in his creation. For example, he instilled in us a craving for freedom, independence, adventurism, risk, as well as pride and the desire to express our thoughts out loud.

All these vile human qualities interfered with a state of complete, orderly happiness. But Kim Il Sung knew well what levers could be used to control a person. These levers - love, fear, ignorance and control - are fully involved in Korean ideology. That is, they are also involved a little in all other ideologies, but no one here can keep up with the Koreans.

Ignorance

Until the early 80s, televisions in the country were distributed only according to party lists.

Any unofficial information is completely illegal in the country. There is no access to any foreign newspapers or magazines. There is practically no literature as such, except for the officially approved works of modern North Korean writers, which, by and large, amount to praising the ideas of the Juche and the great leader.

Moreover, even North Korean newspapers cannot be stored here for too long: according to A.N. Lankov, one of the few specialists on the DPRK, it is almost impossible to obtain a fifteen-year-old newspaper even in a special storage facility. Still would! Party policy sometimes has to change, and there is no need for the average person to follow these fluctuations.

Koreans have radios, but each device must be sealed in the workshop so that it can only receive a few government radio channels. For keeping an unsealed receiver at home, you are immediately sent to a camp, along with your entire family.

There are televisions, but the cost of a device made in Taiwan or Russia, but with a Korean brand stuck on top of the manufacturer’s mark, is equal to approximately five years’ salary of an employee. So few people can watch TV, two state channels, especially considering that electricity in residential buildings is turned on for only a few hours a day. However, there is nothing to watch there, unless, of course, you count hymns to the leader, children's parades in honor of the leader and monstrous cartoons about how you need to study well in order to fight well against the damned imperialists.

North Koreans, of course, do not travel abroad, except for a tiny layer of members of the party elite. Some specialists can use Internet access with special permits - several institutions have computers connected to the Internet. But to sit down at them, a scientist needs to have a bunch of passes, and any visit to any site is naturally registered and then carefully studied by the security service.

Luxury housing for the elite. There is even a sewer system and elevators work in the morning!

In the world of official information, fabulous lies are happening. What they say in the news is not just a distortion of reality - it has nothing to do with it. Did you know that the average American ration does not exceed 300 grams of grains per day? At the same time, they do not have rations as such; they must earn their three hundred grams of corn in a factory, where the police beat them, so that the Americans work better.

Lankov gives a charming example from a North Korean third-grade textbook: “A South Korean boy, in order to save his dying sister from starvation, donated a liter of blood for American soldiers. With this money he bought rice cake for his sister. How many liters of blood must he donate so that half a cake will also go to him, his unemployed mother and his old grandmother?

The North Korean knows practically nothing about the world around him, he knows neither the past nor the future, and even the exact sciences in local schools and institutes are taught with the distortions required by the official ideology. For such an information vacuum, of course, one has to pay for a fantastically low level of science and culture. But it's worth it.

Love

The North Korean has almost no understanding of the real world

Love brings happiness, and this, by the way, is very good if you make a person love what he needs. The North Korean loves his leader and his country, and they help him in every way possible. Every adult Korean is required to wear a pin with a portrait of Kim Il Sung on his lapel; in every house, institution, in every apartment there should be a portrait of the leader hanging. The portrait should be cleaned daily with a brush and wiped with a dry cloth. So, for this brush there is a special drawer, standing in a place of honor in the apartment. There should be nothing else on the wall on which the portrait hangs, no patterns or pictures - this is disrespectful. Until the seventies, damage to a portrait, even unintentional, was punishable by execution; in the eighties, this could have been done with exile.

The eleven-hour working day of a North Korean daily begins and ends with half-hour political information, which tells about how good it is to live in the DPRK and how great and beautiful the leaders of the greatest country in the world are. On Sunday, the only non-working day, colleagues are supposed to meet together to once again discuss the Juche idea.

The most important school subject is studying the biography of Kim Il Sung. In every kindergarten, for example, there is a carefully guarded model of the leader’s native village; preschool children are required to show without hesitation exactly under which tree “the great leader, at the age of five, thought about the fate of humanity,” and where “he trained his body through sports and hardening to fight against Japanese invaders." There is not a single song in the country that does not contain the name of the leader.

Control

All the youth in the country serve in the army. There are simply no young people on the streets.

Control over the state of minds of the citizens of the DPRK is carried out by the MTF and MOB, or the Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security. Moreover, the MTF is in charge of ideology and deals only with serious political offenses of the residents, while ordinary control over the lives of Koreans is under the jurisdiction of the MTF. It is the MOB patrols that carry out raids on apartments for their political decency and collect denunciations from citizens against each other.

But, naturally, no ministries would be enough for vigil, so the country has created a system of “inminbans”. Any housing in the DPRK is included in one or another inminban - usually twenty, thirty, rarely forty families. Each inminban has a headman - a person responsible for everything that happens in the cell. Every week, the head of the Inminban is obliged to report to the representative of the Ministry of Public Security about what is happening in the area entrusted to him, whether there is anything suspicious, whether anyone has uttered sedition, or whether there is unregistered radio equipment. The head of the Inminban has the right to enter any apartment at any time of the day or night; not letting him in is a crime.

Every person who comes to a house or apartment for more than a few hours is required to register with the headman, especially if he intends to stay overnight. The apartment owners and the guest must provide the warden with a written explanation of the reason for the overnight stay. If, during a MOB raid, unaccounted-for guests are found in the house, not only the owners of the apartment, but also the headman will go to a special settlement. In particularly obvious cases of sedition, responsibility may fall on all members of the inminban at once - for failure to report. For example, for an unauthorized visit of a foreigner to a Korean’s home, several dozen families may end up in the camp at once if they saw him, but hid the information.

Traffic jams in a country where there is no private transport are, as we see, a rare phenomenon.

However, unaccounted guests are rare in Korea. The fact is that you can move from city to city and from village to village only with special passes, which the elders of the inminbans receive at the Moscow Public Library. You can wait months for such permits. And to Pyongyang, for example, no one can go to Pyongyang just like that: people from other regions are allowed into the capital only for official reasons.

Fear

The DPRK is ready to fight the imperialist vermin with machine guns, calculators and volumes of Juche.

According to human rights organizations, approximately 15 percent of all North Koreans live in camps and special settlements.

There are regimes of varying severity, but usually these are simply areas surrounded by energized barbed wire where prisoners live in dugouts and shacks. In strict regimes, women, men and children are kept separately, while in regular regimes, families are not prohibited from living together. Prisoners cultivate the land or work in factories. The working day here lasts 18 hours, all free time is reserved for sleep.

The biggest problem in the camp is hunger. A defector to South Korea, Kang Cheol Hwan, who managed to escape from the camp and get out of the country, testifies that the standard diet for an adult camp resident was 290 grams of millet or corn per day. The prisoners eat rats, mice and frogs - this is a rare delicacy; a rat corpse is of great value here. The mortality rate reaches approximately 30 percent in the first five years, the reason for this is hunger, exhaustion and beatings.

Also a popular measure for political offenders (as well as for criminal offenders) is the death penalty. It is automatically applied when it comes to such serious violations as disrespectful words addressed to the great leader. Death executions are carried out publicly, by shooting. High school and student excursions are brought to them so that young people get a correct idea of ​​what is good and what is bad.

That's how they lived

Portraits of precious leaders hang even in the subway, in every car.

The life of a North Korean who has not yet been convicted, however, cannot be called a raspberry. As a child, he spends almost all his free time in kindergarten and school, since his parents have no time to sit with him: they are always at work. At seventeen, he is drafted into the army, where he serves for ten years (for women, the service life is reduced to eight). Only after the army can he go to college and get married (marriage is prohibited for men under 27 and women under 25).

He lives in a tiny apartment, 18 meters of total area here is very comfortable housing for a family. If he is not a resident of Pyongyang, then with a 99 percent probability he has neither water supply nor sewerage in his house; even in cities there are water pumps and wooden toilets in front of apartment buildings.

He eats meat and sweets four times a year, on national holidays, when residents are given coupons for these types of food. Usually he feeds on rice, corn and millet, which he receives on ration cards at the rate of 500–600 grams per adult in “well-fed” years. Once a year he is allowed to receive ration cards for 80 kilograms of cabbage in order to pickle it. A small free market has opened up here in recent years, but the cost of a skinny chicken is equal to a month's salary of an employee. Party officials, however, eat quite decently: they receive food from special distributors and differ from the very lean rest of the population by being pleasantly plump.

Almost all women have their hair cut short and permed, since the great leader once said that this particular hairstyle suits Korean women very well. Now wearing a different hairstyle is like signing your own disloyalty. Long hair on men is strictly prohibited; cutting hair longer than five centimeters can lead to arrest.

Experiment results

The ceremonial children from a privileged Pyongyang kindergarten, allowed to be shown to foreigners.

Deplorable. Poverty, a practically non-functioning economy, population decline - all these signs of failed social experience got out of control during Kim Il Sung's lifetime. In the nineties, real famine came to the country, caused by drought and the cessation of food supplies from the collapsed USSR.

Pyongyang tried to hush up the true scale of the disaster, but, according to experts who studied satellite imagery, approximately two million people died of hunger during these years, that is, every tenth Korean died. Despite the fact that the DPRK was a rogue state, guilty of nuclear blackmail, the world community began to supply humanitarian aid there, which it is still doing.

Love for the leader helps not to go crazy - this is the state version of the “Stockholm syndrome”

In 1994, Kim Il Sung died, and since then the regime began to creak especially loudly. Nevertheless, nothing has changed fundamentally, except for some liberalization of the market. There are signs that suggest that the North Korean party elite is ready to give up the country in exchange for guarantees of personal integrity and Swiss bank accounts.

But now South Korea no longer expresses immediate readiness for unification and forgiveness: after all, taking on board 20 million people who are not adapted to modern life is a risky business. Engineers who have never seen a computer; peasants who are excellent at cooking grass, but are unfamiliar with the basics of modern agriculture; civil servants who know the Juche formulas by heart, but do not have the slightest idea of ​​what a toilet looks like... Sociologists predict social upheavals, stockbrokers predict St. Vitus's dance on the stock exchanges, ordinary South Koreans reasonably fear a sharp decline in living standards.

Even in a store for foreigners, where Koreans are not allowed to enter, the range of goods is not very diverse.

So the DPRK still exists - a crumbling monument to a great social experiment that once again showed that freedom, despite all its untidiness, is perhaps the only path that humanity can follow.

A country in half: historical background

Kim Il Sung

In 1945, Soviet and American troops occupied Korea, thus freeing it from Japanese occupation. The country was divided along the 38th parallel: the north went to the USSR, the south to the USA. Some time was spent trying to agree on unifying the country back, but since the partners had different views on everything, naturally no consensus was reached and in 1948 the formation of two Koreas was officially announced. It cannot be said that the parties gave up like this, without effort. In 1950, the Korean War began, somewhat reminiscent of the Third World War. From the north, the USSR, China and the hastily formed North Korean army fought, the honor of the southerners was defended by the USA, Great Britain and the Philippines, and among other things, UN peacekeeping forces were still traveling back and forth across Korea, throwing a spanner in the works of both. In general, it was quite stormy.

In 1953 the war ended. True, no agreements were signed; formally, both Koreas continued to remain in a state of war. North Koreans call this war the “Patriotic Liberation War,” while South Koreans call it the “June 25 Incident.” Quite a characteristic difference in terms.

In the end, the division at the 38th parallel remained in effect. Around the border, the parties formed the so-called “demilitarized zone” - an area that is still crammed with unrecovered mines and the remains of military equipment: the war is not officially over. During the war, approximately a million Chinese, two million South and North Koreans, 54,000 Americans, 5,000 British, and 315 soldiers and officers of the Soviet Army died.

After the war, the United States brought order to South Korea: they took control of the government, banned the execution of communists without trial, built military bases and poured money into the economy, so that South Korea quickly turned into one of the richest and most successful Asian states. Much more interesting things have begun in North Korea.

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Journalist Roman Super managed to meet and talk frankly with an old man who was able to escape from Pyongyang to South Korea fourteen years ago. Not everyone is able to learn about the reality of life and everyday life of ordinary North Koreans. For example, only one Russian journalist succeeded in this, not counting Roman.

North Korean defectors, for fear of being identified by the DPRK authorities, are in no hurry to communicate with journalists. And the stories of those defectors who agree to be interviewed by Western media, as a rule, resemble propaganda tales, says the author himself. It took four whole years to find a refugee who could talk openly about the most closed country in the world.

"Survivor"

Jon Hyun Moo (not his real name) is now 60 years old and lives in Seoul. In 2003, he miraculously managed to escape from the DPRK to neighboring South Korea. The man was born in the capital Pyongyang into a middle-income family. His parents are the most ordinary people, not belonging to the elite or having high ranks. My mother worked for the North Korean Women's Association for thirty years. My father worked at an art academy, then changed two more educational institutions. According to the hero's story, the family lived modestly, without excesses. Like everyone else, they did not have the right to private property.

John agreed to the interview on the condition that he would not be filmed or photographed.
Photo: author of the article

“In the nineties, the situation began to change: four categories of people appeared who were allowed to own a personal car: Japanese Koreans who returned to their homeland, diplomatic service employees, i.e., who received a car as a gift from the country’s leadership, and children of high-ranking officials.”

Residents of the capital could enjoy the benefits of civilization: a refrigerator, TV and other simple household appliances. Until the nineties, the old man says, there could be no transactions involving the purchase, sale or exchange of housing. This was strictly prohibited by the party. However, in the 90s, something like a black real estate market began to take shape. The state knew about this, sometimes punishing market participants in an exemplary manner. But the market was just developing. Under Kim Jong Il, the sale and purchase of apartments outside of Pyongyang became quite common, the hero shares his memories. In the mid-nineties, problems with power outages began. At first they started turning it off for an hour. Then for four hours. Then it could be dark for half a day. There are still regular interruptions.

Photo: kchetverg.ru

Who was it better with?

The journalist’s questions also touched on political trends related to the Soviet Union. For example, are terms like “thaw” or “freeze” appropriate in the DPRK?

“Such phenomena were also observed in North Korea. We all felt it. I remember life under the young Kim Il Sung. It was a very tough regime. As Kim Il Sung grew older, around sixty, he began to mellow. It's not obvious, but it showed up. But these changes cannot be compared with Russia anyway. In the DPRK, the pattern of changes is completely different: there is no clear division between thaw and frost.”

John Hyun Moo explains this by the fact that the political line of the party always changed with the coming to power of the next leader. For example, during the reign of the already aged Kim Il Sung, the country seemed to experience a weakening. However, as soon as Kim Jong Il came to power, such trends immediately disappeared, if not to say that it became even tougher than it was.

“Older North Koreans say that things were better under Kim Il Sung, that there were no such terrible repressions. I don’t think so myself. During the harsh period of Kim Il Sung's rule, I was a child and did not experience repression myself. But I remember my surroundings, my parents’ friends, people I know, many of whom suffered. Of the sixty-three people who studied with me at school, only thirteen remain.”

The hero does not see much difference in the regime of government of the two leaders. After all, you cannot compare the number of missing or liquidated people. At the same time, John cites a parallel between the USSR and the DPRK.

“Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il were ten times harsher than Stalin”

Party member with a fig in his pocket

After university, John got a job as a cook in a hotel. Then, after three years of military service, he was able to become a party member. His party affiliation helped him get a job at the same hotel, but no longer as a cook, but as a manager. Talking to foreign guests was strictly prohibited. And in general, it is legally prohibited to communicate with the outside world, to find out about what is happening outside the country. You can't even listen to the radio without state permission. Otherwise, prison.

Photo: tourweek.ru

However, closer to the 2000s, a lot of contraband from China appeared: disks with films, USB cards with South Korean TV series. It was a real underground cultural revolution.

“After being shown the same show for decades, cinema from Seoul is a treat.”

Next, John begins to talk about the huge gap between rich and poor in the DPRK. Such a spread exists in many countries of the world, but unlike them in North Korea, the rich are only one percent of the total population. Despite the fact that a huge number of the population understand this injustice, arguing this with memories of the nineties: there was a terrible famine in the country, but now it is not, so now it has become better!

Card system

According to the stories of John Hyun Mu, there used to be two types of cards: grocery cards, which were used to purchase food, and those that could be used to get clothes. Each citizen had his own standards. The workers have seven hundred grams of rice, the students have three hundred grams. According to everyone's needs. The problem was that the standards were not followed. In Pyongyang they monitored this and gave people food as needed. In the provinces they gave less than they should have. The cards provided only basic products: soybean paste, rice, sugar. And what was not included in the obligatory basket could be bought for money. But there was some minimal diversity only in Pyongyang.

Photo: repin.info

Clothes were rarely issued; for example, a set of underwear and socks could be obtained at a time for the whole family. Once a quarter. Shoes are rarer. They also gave out fabric. Everything was strictly recorded: such and such a person took so many panties, so many meters of fabric in such and such a period. In the eighties, clothes were regularly issued. In the nineties there were big interruptions in distribution, says the hero.

Private entrepreneurship began when the country began to run out of food and basic necessities. People turned to business solely out of urgent need, so as not to die of hunger, and not out of love for private enterprise. In the nineties, when famine was raging, this was already flourishing.

“I would even say that in the nineties, North Korean citizens were greater capitalists than southerners. Only in the DPRK the party did not recognize this. North Korea introduced a private business system modeled on the USSR. Everyone is trying to sell something if possible, but this is not official. The currency was banned, but it definitely exists on the black market. In 2002, when the Kaesong Industrial Complex opened, the Party recognized that a new business system had emerged in North Korea."

All businessmen in North Korea are counted by the state, everyone knows everything about everyone. In the DPRK, the authorities have a clear rule: if a person, in the opinion of the state, begins to earn too much, then this businessman will sooner or later go to prison.. Because, according to the logic of the state, a person cannot honestly earn a lot of money. This logic is sufficient grounds for a prison sentence. Or elimination.

John himself at one time sold used bicycles and used clothing. He managed to earn colossal sums: $87,000 and another 1,300,000 Japanese yen, with an average monthly salary of several dollars.

Everything would be fine, but I want to live

With such income, John had no idea of ​​fleeing the country where everything was going so well for him. But after a series of disappearances, and subsequently the murders of his companions, the businessman decided to flee.

Photo: newsader.com

Realizing that escaping with the whole family (his wife and two children) would mean outright death, he decided to fake his own death. He made false documents that he died in a car accident. This is the only safe option for them. If they had known that I was alive and had escaped, and had not told the authorities, they could have been severely punished. He never communicated with his family again.

“I will be able to see my family if only the North Korean regime collapses. I think it will collapse. But this may take a long time. Most likely, I won’t live, so I won’t see my family.”

Escape from homeland

Pretending that he was on his way to pick up another shipment of goods, he went to China. It took John 4 months to buy a fake South Korean passport. Or rather, special people carefully pasted his photograph into someone else’s real passport. Having confessed to the South Korean embassy about his flight, he ended up in the Philippines. This is a common practice; defectors are almost always sent to South Korea through some other country, not directly. In the Philippines, he spent two hours at the airport just to catch a plane to Seoul.

What followed was a series of checks by the South Koreans to determine whether he was a spy and whether he was really a refugee. After that, he was sent to a retraining college, where he was taught to adapt to life in South Korea. To do this, first of all, you need to free yourself from previous ideological attitudes. It is difficult for people who have lived their entire lives in a socialist society to adapt to a capitalist mode of existence. This adaptation is a very difficult thing. In all senses. Life is very different.

“The North, at the party level, tells you all your life clearly what you should do, and you don’t make any decisions. The South forces you to make all decisions yourself. At first, this is incredibly difficult to understand, accept and apply to life.”

New life

Photo: arhinovosti.ru

In Seoul, John tried to make jewelry, then got a job at a radio station in the department where they prepare programs for the DPRK. However, he is not sure that even in 2016 this radio can still be heard.

There are two reasons when defectors return to the DPRK: The first reason is family. People get in touch with their loved ones, this is revealed very quickly, the family begins to receive real threats, then refugees return to soften the government’s blow to their relatives. The second reason is the problems of northerners with the law in South Korea. Upon return, some are released, some are imprisoned, some are liquidated.

When asked what surprised John most about South Korea, he says that in North Korea all his life they told him that South Korea was completely subservient to the Americans. In geography lessons at school they said that there are mountains only in North Korea, but not in South Korea. I heard that the Internet exists, but I have never even used a computer. Now he has his own email and social networks, but he uses them very carefully, fearing that his wife and two children might get hurt.

“If the party finds out that I am alive, and even in South Korea, my relatives will have big problems. While I am "dead", they are alive. This is what I think about every day."

Dissidents

“In Pyongyang, dissident movements are simply impossible. The South, despite its harsh authoritarian past, has long been able to afford a court, could count on the attention of the world community, and could ensure the basic rights of citizens with the help of institutions. Southerners did not send people to concentration camps without trial on such a large scale. Southerners did not kill people because of the sick suspiciousness of the authorities.”

According to the former northerner, a coup from within is impossible. Now North Korea has its third leader. And all this time, people's dissatisfaction has been accumulating. They accumulate, accumulate, accumulate, but this “gas” does not come out. He is afraid that this gas will only come out when someone outside holds a lit match, war for example. Then change will be inevitable, John believes.

“People will not fight even for the divine Kim Il Sung. It’s one thing to silently go with the flow in a situation where it’s scary to speak. Another thing is to fight. Nobody will fight. But by taking advantage of the military situation, discontent will come out. Words will begin to come out.”

Photo: kchetverg.ru

As for the crowds of people crying in the square after the death of Kim Jong Il, John says that they were different people. There were also tears of careerists who tried to curry favor in this way. And those who are simply pathologically afraid of not showing loyalty.

“I’ll tell you how the North Korean government brings up these tears and flowers. The first word a child says out loud in the DPRK is “mama.” The second word is a word of praise for Kim Il Sung. This propaganda literally comes to a person with mother’s milk and accompanies him throughout his life. This is religion. In religious families, children are raised in a specific tradition. In North Korea, this religious tradition is called Juche."

John himself does not miss his homeland at all. Even after 14 years of living in South Korea, Juche continues to haunt him in nightmares.

When asked if he knows about Russia, John says that it doesn’t bother him much. He thinks more about China, because, in his opinion, this is the only country that can really influence North Korea.

“Moscow has no serious ties with Pyongyang. Moscow cooperates much more with Seoul"

Talking about refugees

As the hero says, about 30 thousand refugees from the DPRK live in South Korea. Basically they “huddle” and stick together. But all people are different. Anyone who lived well in North Korea lives well in South Korea. Those who lived poorly in North Korea still live poorly now. The social system, the system, is very important. But a person’s internal problems are more important, John shares his observations.

Nine out of ten are fleeing the country from poverty in search of a better life.

Modern Pyongyang
Photo: Reuters

North Korea, or otherwise North Korea, is the most closed country in the world. It does not submit statistical data to the world information bank, so it is difficult to determine even the exact number of the state's population. Getting into this country is quite difficult, one might say almost impossible. And if you come to North Korea as part of an excursion group (independent trips to the DPRK are prohibited), prepare for the fact that you will be constantly accompanied by an “official guide”, and two more people will follow in the distance, trying not to draw attention to themselves, people in civilian clothes. But staged photos show us the prosperity and happiness of ordinary workers of the DPRK. What is the real North Korea like? Our article will be devoted to the lives of its ordinary citizens.

A little history and politics

After World War II, the former Japanese colony of Korea became the subject of disputes between the USSR and the United States. The Soviet Union established control over the territory of the peninsula north of the thirty-eighth parallel, and the United States established control over the southern part of the country. Thus, a single people was divided by a demarcation line. When the Republic of Korea was formed in the south of the peninsula in August 1948, the northern part also declared itself a separate country in September of the same year. All political power was monopolized by the protege of the USSR - the Labor Party. In 1950, the DPRK decided to take revenge and, supported by China and the Soviet Union, invaded South Korea. The latter was defended by Great Britain, the USA and a number of other states that fought under the UN banner. Over three years of fighting, more than a million Koreans were killed and injured. But after the end of the war, the unification of the people did not occur. While in the south the country's development took a democratic path, life in North Korea became increasingly similar to existence under a totalitarian system. The country has established a personality cult for the rulers of the Kim clan.

Juche

All spheres of life in this state are permeated by a special type of communist ideology. It was developed in the mid-twentieth century by Kim Il Sung. This ideology is called Juche. Over the seventy years of the existence of the DPRK, this ideology has turned into a kind of religion. Any skepticism towards the ruling party, and especially the leaders, is equated to sacrilege. Juche is based on the principles of identity, which led the country to isolation and closedness from the outside world. Life in North Korea is built on myths. Citizens are told that they live better than their neighbors and that in other countries the economy is completely stagnant. The country has its own calendar. It begins with the birthday of the father of the nation, Kim Il Sung (1912). According to Juche ideas, citizens are prohibited from “all kinds of servility towards other countries,” which in everyday life is expressed in the extremely cautious communication of Koreans with foreigners. Isolationism, which became one of the main slogans of the country (the so-called “reliance on one’s own strength”), led to the fact that in the nineties, when famine began in the republic due to incompetent management, the DPRK authorities refused to recognize this fact for a long time.

Tourism in North Korea

As strange as it may sound, arriving in this most closed state is like entering the mystical Shambhala. You won’t find air tickets to Pyongyang on sale for free - they simply don’t exist. The easiest way to enter the country is from China. The DPRK government, despite “relying on its own forces,” is loyal to its northern neighbor. And after the death of Kim Jong Il, a slight liberalization has been observed. It is expressed, first of all, in the fact that Chinese tourists began to be allowed into the country, and they were also allowed to trade consumer goods from the Middle Kingdom. Let’s not forget that many residents of the northern part of the country have relatives in the south. The liberalization of the last five years has affected them too. Near the border, in the mountainous region of Kumgangsan, a special tourist zone has been established, where citizens from the southern republic come with food and clothing to make life easier for their relatives in North Korea. Every year, about five thousand tourists from Western European countries arrive in the DPRK as part of excursion groups. From Russia you can only get to the closed country by flight Vladivostok - Pyongyang, which is operated by Air Koryo airline. Liberalization also affected residents of the Russian Far East. The Nason free trade zone opened in 2012.

Restrictions for tourists

Foreigners' passports are taken away for safekeeping upon entry into the country. Until 2013, mobile phones were also confiscated. Only embassy employees are allowed to use the Internet. The country has its own network. It's called Intronet. Finding objective information there is just as difficult as hearing it on the radio or TV. All channels in the country, without exception, are state-owned. They sing praises to the current ruler, as well as his father and grandfather, and also tell what a great and prosperous country North Korea is. Real life photos, however, clearly contradict this statement. There are no exchange offices in the country. Citizens are prohibited from owning currency, and foreigners are prohibited from owning local money, the won. Also, strangers are not allowed into shops, train stations, or anywhere outside the excursion route. Tourists live in special reservation hotels. They have their own shops for foreigners, the prices of which are comparable to European ones.

Life in North Korea through the eyes of eyewitnesses

How do tourists characterize the life of local residents? The most frequently used words in reviews of the DPRK are “poverty” and “dullness.” Well-read tourists often compare the country to Orwell's novel 1984. Locals eat mainly rice and vegetables. Fish and meat appear on tables only on major holidays. But for various memorable dates (and there are many of them in the country), the government gives food packages to certain sections of society. These rations contain men's and women's vodka, mineral water, and sweets. For the holidays, discount coupons are also issued for the purchase of clothing. With all this, life in North Korea seems to be unusually pleasing to the population. People endlessly praise their leader, sometimes with ecstatic delight. But how sincere is this?

North Korea: the life of ordinary people

Despite the fact that official guides try to present their country in an embellished way, the sad reality is simply striking. High-rise buildings are being built in Pyongyang, but there are very few of them. The city mainly consists of dull concrete barracks. Along the streets along which excursion routes run, houses are plastered, and residents are instructed to place flowerpots in their windows. But you can notice that a number of buildings on the second line are devoid of this decor. The vast majority of North Korean citizens are thin or even skinny - this is due to eating only rice and vegetables. If you want to show compassion, bring chocolate, cigarettes, and cosmetics to your guide. But most importantly, do not try to secretly leave the hotel and, especially, talk to the local residents. First of all, it won't work. They'll just run away. Secondly, they will immediately tell the authorities about the incident. And in the end, your guide, who is responsible for maintaining the tourists’ faith in the happy present of the DPRK, will suffer.

Liberalization of the last six years

Since Kim Jong Il's death at the end of 2011, the country has seen some positive changes. If you believe the reviews, then life in North Korea through the eyes of those tourists who visited the state under the previous ruler has become more open. This is expressed in everyday life. First of all, people began to dress not in paramilitary jackets, but in bright Chinese things. There are even cars owned by private individuals. But tourists in excursion groups are still required to bow to the statues of the two rulers of the DPRK.