Foreign tourists eager to pay their respects to the late dictator of North Korea can finally satisfy their urges with the first tour to the closed country for more than five years, which coincides with the deceased despot’s birthday.
For the first time since it shut its borders in the pandemic in January 2020, foreign tour companies have been given permission to take international tourists to the city of Rason, in the far northeast of North Korea, close to its borders with Russia and China.
Even by North Korean standards, Rason is not a charismatic city — among the attractions to which visitors will be taken are a “combined foodstuff processing factory producing various snacks and drinks” and a “sea cucumber breeding farm”.
In compensation the tours will coincide with February 16, the Day of the Shining Star, as it is known in North Korea — the birthday of Kim Jong-il, late father to the current supreme leader, Kim Jong-un. The day is sometimes celebrated with parades and other commemorative solemnities.
Koryo Tours, a Beijing-based tour company, is advertising the four-night Kim Jong-il birthday tour for €705, with two additional nights in China, through which most travellers to North Korea transit. A rival travel company, Young Pioneer Tours, is offering a similar, shorter itinerary for €645.
“We will visit various factories, see a Taekwondo demonstration at the Rason Taekwondo School, and make a stop at the Golden Triangle Bank to learn about Rason’s unique economic system,” Koryo Tours said on its website. “Here, you can even open your very own North Korean bank account.”
Banking in one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world may be of limited use. Koryo Tours carefully notes that the tour is not yet confirmed and depends on permission to cross by land from the Chinese authorities.
North Korea used to have a small, but constant, population of diplomats, aid workers and United Nations employees, as well as about 5,000 tourists a year. Apart from strong supporters of the regime, such as China, Russia, Mongolia and Cuba, few diplomats have been allowed to return. Britain’s ambassador to Pyongyang, David Ellis, has not been allowed to take up residence at his embassy since his appointment in 2021.
Foreign visitors to Pyongyang have to be on their best behaviour. In 2016, an American student, Otto Warmbier, was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour for stealing a North Korea propaganda banner. He died 15 months later after being returned to the US in a coma and with brain damage.
The North Korean authorities said that his ill health was the result of treatment for the bacterial disease botulism. His family, and the then president, Donald Trump, claimed that he had been tortured. There was speculation that his brain damage was caused by a failed suicide attempt.
