Travel
Tuesday, 04 August 2009 10:08
Written by Ned Kelly

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During the Korean War (1950-53) more bombs were dropped on the DPRK by the US-led United Nation forces than were on Japan and Germany combined during World War II, and it is estimated 428,000 were dropped on capital Pyongyang alone – more than one per member of the population - reducing the city to rubble.

After the armistice was signed the city was redesigned and rebuilt at Chollima speed, and is not without its surprises. The signature Soviet Classicism-style wide avenues, imposing monuments, and monolithic buildings are offset by an abundance of greenery; with nearly 200 parks and open spaces dotted throughout the city, Pyongyang boasts four times the U.N.-suggested amount of greenery per person.

Yet - let's not kid ourselves - it’s not all roses. Perhaps the most interesting, and without doubt the most conspicuous curiosity is the Ryugyong Hotel: a massive unfinished, empty, dilapidated concrete pyramid that dwarfs every other building in Pyongyang and looms ominously over you wherever you are in the city. At 330-meters (1,083ft) tall it is the 28th tallest building in the world.

The hotel’s story begins in 1987, when the North Korean regime - irked, it is said, by the South Korean built Stamford Hotel towering in Singapore - began construction at an estimated cost of $750 million, or 2% of the country’s gross domestic product. At that time it was to be the seventh largest building in the world, enclosing 361,000 square metres (3,885,772 sq ft) of floor space and was planned to be topped by a head-spinning seven revolving restaurants. So proud of the project were the government that they added it to their official city maps before the project was even started. Ah, good old hubris…

Construction was plagued with problems, and after five years completely ground to a halt due to a shortage of funding and electricity, the famine of 1990, and because the elevator engineering had failed to provide service to the top floors. And there the building shell sat mockingly - vacant, without windows, fixtures or fittings - for 16 years, being likened to the giant calcium deposit on the neck of late dictator Kim Il-sung - a growth that was clearly visible despite official attempts to hide it from view. A more fitting metaphor for a proud yet failing state it would be hard to imagine.

But what would a story about a pyramid be without mention of the land of the pharaohs? After 16 years of inactivity the Orascom Group of Egypt - I kid you not - the company brought in to set up the country's mobile phone network, started refurbishing the top floors of the hotel in April 2008. In September, a senior North Korean official said the Ryugyong Hotel will be completed by 2012 - the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung. Meanwhile, an Orascom company official said the goal of the project was to give the structure's facade a facelift and make it more attractive. So who knows what the future holds? Like its counterparts back in Giza, this pyramid is still shrouded in mystery.

Check out the second installment of the DPRK Files - The DMZ, right here.

Check out the third installement of the DPRK Files: Big Kim, right here.

Check out the fourth installment of The DPRK Files: Children's Palace, right here.

Ned Kelly has just returned from the DPRK, watch out for excerpts and extras in the coming weeks from the trip as we build up to the big article in the September issue of That's Shanghai.

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