Offtopic, but every time I watch a documentary on North Korea I am happy to see that so much of the old Berlin subway rolling stock seems to lead a nice retirement live there - according to Wikipedia, they use 220 Class D cars from the 50ies and 60ies (132 in active service) in the Pyongyang Metro, and another 120 Class G cars from the 70ies were converted into trains for the Korean State Railway. [0]
When I see pictures, I'm always surprised by how relatively normal it looks from a distance. I guess I pictured it more 1984 style, with grey cubed buildings and zero trees, decoration, or anything else pleasant.
From a distance, it seems remarkably normal to me. I have no desire to visit and certainly wouldn't want to live there, but it looks not all that bad.
> Having visited the hermit state around 200 times through working as a tour guide
He's a regime supporter who brings in desperately needed foreign currency to help pay for the nuke & missile program and elite luxuries. Hence, given that he has talked about and posted this, he is almost certainly correct when he says
> Some media has portrayed the idea that North Koreans are embarrassed by the empty hotel or the length of time it took to finish, Cockerell said, "but I never found that to be true"..."That's ludicrous, and never been true. Absolute nonsense. It used to appear on the front of books and magazines, even when it was an incomplete concrete shell with a crane up top. So that's complete rubbish. It was not a cause for embarrassment." Cockerell said the Kim family simply put the blame on America, falsely explaining to the North Korean people that the delays were "the fault of jealous conspiracies" from outside Western powers...Cockerell has also observed how Pyongyang locals interact with the structure. "It's not like people sit on their balconies, watching the slogans go by. It's just part of the nightlife. It's a futuristic building to North Koreans, very modern, unlike anything else."
That is, this post is sort of a quasi 'submarine' for North Korean tourism. 'Come see our unique pyramid, which we think is cool rather than a symptom of totalitarian dictatorship (and pay us a lot of renminbi/dollars/yen)!'
Simon has unprecedented access to NK. More than any other Westerner, I think. He's been doing this for so long, without reprisal, that I think he must know where the line is on what he can publicly document.
If you meet him, ask him about the other stuff he can't document... :)
There's some kind of cartoonist supervillian picture of North Korea. It's quite surprising when you learn that it's a country filled with ordinary people, doing ordinary things like us.
Yes it's incredibly paranoid and authoritarian, but when you learn the history it makes sense why it is like that.
This is a country that was utterly destroyed by a superpower, who crowed about it, and which still threatens it.
A much better model is that it is ruled by the Kim family as a dictatorship for the last eighty years. Wars, other countries, and the like are mere sideshows. Sure, they influenced NK’s history, but fundamentally it is a story of autocratic rule more than anything else.
> Due to the huge cost of importing steel, the towers were constructed on a cheaper radical design of super high-strength reinforced concrete. High-strength concrete is a material familiar to Asian contractors and twice as effective as steel in sway reduction; however, it makes the building twice as heavy on its foundation as a comparable steel building. Supported by 23-by-23 metre concrete cores and an outer ring of widely spaced super columns, the towers use a sophisticated structural system that accommodates its slender profile and provides 560,000 square metres of column-free office space. [0]
Looking in Wikipedia, they still have a section that diminishes with the height and they are made of some special "super high-strength reinforced concrete".
Even by using this special reinforced concrete, the towers are twice heavier than if they had used a steel structure.
I believe those are the same thing. You tell me you have rare photos from inside the Titan Submersible, I'm going to expect multiple story defining shots from inside. Not just stock photos of the sea.
> No doubt a source of pain for the Kim dynasty, the impressive 554m Lotte World Tower in Seoul, South Korea, which was finished in 2017, dwarfs the Ryugyong Hotel.
This is in fact doubly painful, since the whole reason they built the Ryugyong is (apparently) that a South Korean company built what was then the world's tallest hotel in Singapore.
> Construction began in 1987 but was halted in 1992 as North Korea entered a period of economic crisis after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After 1992, the building stood topped out, but without any windows or interior fittings. In 2008, construction resumed, and the exterior was completed in 2011.
> Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel was intended to be completed [...] in 1992; if this had been achieved, it would have held the title of world's tallest hotel.
Also fun fact is that "Ryugyong" translates to "capital of willows". It's fascinating how critical and important willows have been to cultures around the world
Readit News
Examples:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AkZ2SijQOE
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo-rXlPr_94
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyongyang_Metro
Dead Comment
1) is the person now banned? 2) did insiders get punished?
For this one, I worry for those insiders. They made their choice but I can’t imagine Kim is happy this got out.
From a distance, it seems remarkably normal to me. I have no desire to visit and certainly wouldn't want to live there, but it looks not all that bad.
He's a regime supporter who brings in desperately needed foreign currency to help pay for the nuke & missile program and elite luxuries. Hence, given that he has talked about and posted this, he is almost certainly correct when he says
> Some media has portrayed the idea that North Koreans are embarrassed by the empty hotel or the length of time it took to finish, Cockerell said, "but I never found that to be true"..."That's ludicrous, and never been true. Absolute nonsense. It used to appear on the front of books and magazines, even when it was an incomplete concrete shell with a crane up top. So that's complete rubbish. It was not a cause for embarrassment." Cockerell said the Kim family simply put the blame on America, falsely explaining to the North Korean people that the delays were "the fault of jealous conspiracies" from outside Western powers...Cockerell has also observed how Pyongyang locals interact with the structure. "It's not like people sit on their balconies, watching the slogans go by. It's just part of the nightlife. It's a futuristic building to North Koreans, very modern, unlike anything else."
That is, this post is sort of a quasi 'submarine' for North Korean tourism. 'Come see our unique pyramid, which we think is cool rather than a symptom of totalitarian dictatorship (and pay us a lot of renminbi/dollars/yen)!'
If you meet him, ask him about the other stuff he can't document... :)
I caught up and was like "wtf can we do this? they dont mind?"
He told me yea, no problem go wherever you like in the parade just dont do anything stupid. So we did.
He was very clear about when we needed to hold back, but also knew exactly which boundaries could be pushed.
Yes it's incredibly paranoid and authoritarian, but when you learn the history it makes sense why it is like that.
This is a country that was utterly destroyed by a superpower, who crowed about it, and which still threatens it.
Except the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur are standard supertalls built out of reinforced concrete?
> Due to the huge cost of importing steel, the towers were constructed on a cheaper radical design of super high-strength reinforced concrete. High-strength concrete is a material familiar to Asian contractors and twice as effective as steel in sway reduction; however, it makes the building twice as heavy on its foundation as a comparable steel building. Supported by 23-by-23 metre concrete cores and an outer ring of widely spaced super columns, the towers use a sophisticated structural system that accommodates its slender profile and provides 560,000 square metres of column-free office space. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronas_Towers
Even by using this special reinforced concrete, the towers are twice heavier than if they had used a steel structure.
I take it, monumental effort for close to zero functionality is North-Korean.
This is in fact doubly painful, since the whole reason they built the Ryugyong is (apparently) that a South Korean company built what was then the world's tallest hotel in Singapore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss%C3%B4tel_The_Stamford
> Construction began in 1987 but was halted in 1992 as North Korea entered a period of economic crisis after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After 1992, the building stood topped out, but without any windows or interior fittings. In 2008, construction resumed, and the exterior was completed in 2011.
> Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel was intended to be completed [...] in 1992; if this had been achieved, it would have held the title of world's tallest hotel.
Also fun fact is that "Ryugyong" translates to "capital of willows". It's fascinating how critical and important willows have been to cultures around the world