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PYONGYANG AND ITS PEOPLE

(NOTES OF A SOVIET STUDENT)

by Andrei Lankov

The following article is an enlarged and re-worked English version of a chapter from Severnaia Koreia: vchera i segodnia (North Korea: Yesterday and Today), published in Russian in 1995 (Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura)

In 1984-1985, I spent one year in the DPRK as a foreign student at the Kim Il Song university. When returned, I decided to write down some of my impressions of North Korean. The following article is based on those old impressions. The result may be rather chaotic, as such impressions, jolted down "as the spirit moves" are, perhaps, wont to be. However, it is hoped that they still would be of some interest to students of contemporary North Korea. Obviously, during the last 15 years, the North Korean capital has changed, though probably not as much as other cities of Eastern Asia.  

Pyongyang is the capital of the DPRK and the biggest city in the country. In the mid-1980s, its population exceeded 1.5 million, while no other city in the DPRK reached even the 500-thousand mark. Pyongyang is the seat of government, all main state agencies and most academic and cultural institutions, including Kim Il Song University, by far the most prestigious North Korean school of higher education. 

However, Pyongyang is not just the largest city of North Korea. For many decades it has been a show-case of North Korean socialism and, to a great degree, it has been developed as an exercise in monumental propaganda. Throughout the entire history of the DPRK, the government has maintained in this city a living standard much higher than that in the rest of the country. Although virtually all foods and consumer goods in North Korea are rationed, the norms are (and always have been) far more generous in Pyongyang than in other North Korean cities. Living in the capital is an important privilege and one had to be a politically reliable and/or well connected person to get a job and housing there. 

Although the Pyongyang of the 1980s was, above all, a propaganda show-case, it was also a city where people lived and worked. The real Pyongyang was quite different from the Pyongyang of the propaganda -- an impressive modern city, the photos of which fill the pages of North Korean publications, which one encounters overseas. 

What did Pyongyang look like in the mid-1980s?  

A wide but rather shallow Taedonggang river divided the North Korean capital into two parts. There were (and still are) only two bridges across the river, both old and narrow (one bridge was built before the Second World War and the other - in the early 1960s). However, this did not constitute a serious problem since the traffic was so little. Traditionally, the city was located on the western bank, while large-scale construction on the eastern bank began only in the 1960s and 1970s. The official city centre is still located on the western bank. Though Pyongyang is some 1500 years old, it is almost impossible to find there any building which predates Korean War. Old Pyongyang was literally wiped out by the American bombing of 1950-1953. What North Koreans call "ancient monuments" are, in fact, newly built constructions, often quite different to the originals, and devised according to the modern North Korean ideas about what ancient architecture may have looked like.  

The central part of the city, indeed, consisted of wide thoroughfares, modern architecture, and monumental office blocks. It was an official centre where the main state agencies were located and where the governing elite lived. This "show-off" part of the city was surprisingly small: in the mid-1980s, it took just half an hour to walk through it. During first post-war years, in the 1950s and early 1960s, the city centre was located on the Sûngni (Victory) Prospect, just near the river' bank. At that time, until the mid-1970s, it was called the Stalin Prospect -- a symbol of the North Korean leadership's stubborn resistance to the Moscow examples of dismantling Stalin cult. The Sûngni Prospect is still filled with massive, heavy and pompous buildings reminiscent of the Soviet post-war style, and, indeed, designed by the Soviet architects or their Korean pupils. In the mid-1980s, however, the most impressive parts of Pyongyang were quarters situated further to the west, on the Ch'anggwang and Ch'ônlima Prospects. It is this part of the city where most of the shots for overseas propaganda magazines were taken by the official photographers.  

However, glossy pictures do not show one important detail: most of this central quarter is surrounded by a high metal fence with gates guarded by stocky girls with AK rifles and in military uniform. These quarters are North Korea's Forbidden City, a place where the governing elite of North Korea lived. The impressive high-rise apartment complexes were built for these privileged few, luxurious Mercedes awaited them in the mornings, their children attended the exemplary 1st Secondary school, as well as the attendant exemplary kindergarten and nursery. In this closed quarter there were special shops and other establishments needed to provide the cadres with a comfortable life. As a foreigner, I was not allowed inside this quarter, and ordinary Koreans were never let in. However, the presence of affluence and power was often felt around the perimeters. It could manifest itself in the shape of a huge Mercedes passing by or by groups of teenagers, the offspring of the cadres, taking a lazy walk along the street. They wore imported clothes or suits a la Kim Chông Il. Their faces virtually radiated contempt for the poor and undernourished lesser orders. Even the compulsory badges of Kim Il Song were used as a "fashion statement": the golden youth wear the badges at the very tip of their lapels. 

In the city centre, next to the prestigious quarters occupied by the high bureaucracy and their families, were also located buildings which have become the architectural symbols of North Korea: the Mansudae Arts Theatre, the Grand People's Study House, the Mansudae Congress Palace, the Students and Children's Palace, and the First Department Store. These all are concentrated in one tiny area, no more than 10 or 15 minutes walk across. As I have said, downtown Pyongyang is small, but, interestingly enough, on maps published for foreigners (like all maps, officially published in North Korea, they were not to the scale), this part of the city is always shown disproportionately large. 

Several hundred meters from Ch'anggwang Prospect, near the Soviet embassy, the impressive building of the Mansudae Art Theatre dominates the landscape. In a rare stroke of luck the author managed to visit this monument of the regime's extravagance. The luxurious theatre, the image of which is to be found even on North Korean won bills, does not operate on daily basis and very few foreigners (other than diplomats), not to mention North Korean “commoners”, ever had a chance to grace its halls. In fact, the theatre was patently never designed for "normal" performances since it could only seat about 300 people at any one time, far less than one would expect from a central theatre in a nation's capital. Usually, the audience consisted of foreigners and a few privileged North Koreans who had managed to get invitations. 

The theatre's interior was impressive indeed. Obviously, no money or effort was spared on this structure which was designed around the time when the North Korean economy was in better shape and when the country's authorities were especially ready to sacrifice an unusually high proportion of scarce national resources on self-glorification. The interior design combined traditional Korean craft with modern technology. The floor of the foyer was covered by huge hand-made carpets, the walls were decorated with mosaics and paintings in the traditional style, and the furniture was ornate with elaborate engravings. At the same time, there was the glow of nickel and glass, the ceiling shone with all the colours of the rainbow, automatic doors, elaborate coloured fountains with all kinds of -- gadgetry, impressive even by the standards of much more developed societies. Some people might say the entire structure lacked taste. This may be true, but, nevertheless, the building was still impressive.  

The adjacent square was famous for its fountains. Since the mid-1980s were not the worst time for North Korean economy, they were turned on almost every evening, and created a great spectacle. Huge columns of shining water, lit with coloured lights, sprang from the pools. Every evening, hundreds of people came to enjoy the beauty of the place which ran in such contrast to the dull poverty of their ordinary lives. 

Another part of the official centre was the First Department Store, some five minutes walk from Mansudae Art Theatre. This six-floor structure could hardly be called a "temple of consumption" as the goods in its windows were not intended for consumption at all. As all foods and goods in the country were rationed, an ordinary North Korean could not even dream of buying such high tech exotics as, say, a washing machine or refrigerator. The First Department Store served, above all, propaganda purposes -- its rich-looking windows were meant to demonstrate the country's alleged "prosperity", primarily to foreign visitors.  

Officially, in the mid-1980s North Korea did not admit the existence of a rationing system, or rather, foreigners were not supposed to know about it. Thus, in the First Department Store foreigners could buy anything they wanted. No sales clerk would ask them whether they had a ration coupon. One of our Korean roommates in the student dormitories made good use of this government hypocrisy for his own private purposes. He made an agreement with a foreigner who had been placed under his "supervision" that the latter will buy wine and consumer goods for money which this young entrepreneur would supply. He would then go to his home-town somewhere in the countryside where he would sell the goods on the market for a handsome profit. 

It was the centre of the city where most ministries and other central state agencies were located. In North Korea the official agencies normally did not have signboards. Even such obviously innocent bodies as the Health Ministry or the Ministry of Education were left without any visible signs of their whereabouts. Those who needed to visit some agency or institution were supposed to know where it was while the rest did not have to bother about it, so it was not a problem. All official agencies and institutions of any sort were heavily guarded, sometimes by armed guards or military personnel. Even schools and colleges had their "guards", a role often filled by students themselves. 

Outside the main central zone, another Pyongyang could be found by the adventurous traveller. At first glance, the buildings in these more distant quarters were just a little less pretentious and a little more monotonous than in "downtown". Along tree-lined streets one could see basically similar, if somewhat more modest, apartment blocks, so if one was moving in a car or in a comfortable bus (the usual modes of transportation for most foreigners in Pyongyang) and was not looking around too much, an illusion of a modern city could sustain. However, it was only an illusion. Modern buildings were constructed only along the streets to shield from the outside view slums located inside the blocks. These slums consisting of small huts filled the entire space within blocks, safely guarded from outsider's eyes by the high-rise buildings around. In addition to apartment complexes, there was also a high concrete wall put around each quarter, which also made inside space invisible. 

The further from the city centre, the less efforts were taken to hide the slums: obviously it was considered that foreign guests would hardly venture that far. Particularly poor was the eastern part of Pyongyang, that is, the left bank of the Taedonggang. There, except for the large and new Munsu district, modern buildings formed a narrow line along several streets running parallel to the left bank of the Taedonggang, as well as along the Saesallim and Taedongwon Prospects towards the eastern edge of the city. The rest of eastern Pyongyang was a sea of small brisk-and-clay huts built very close to each other. Between houses there were few streets but mainly just paths -- unpaved and often very dirty after rain. 

A typical one-storied house in Pyongyang still looked very traditional. It was more or less the same type one can encounter in the poorest parts of Seoul -- "moon villages" -- though the Pyongyang variety appeared much more destitute. These structures were very low to the ground, with tiled or slated roofs and plastered walls. All windows and doors were along one side and faced a tiny courtyard with a kitchen garden. From memory, such houses would on average cover about 20 square meters, including non-living space, while the kitchen garden would hardly be half that size. Usually, there were two adjoining rooms and a kitchen with an ondol heating system (air from the hearths wormed the room floors from below). Furniture was scarce and usually self-made. Often it consisted of just a low table and a small cupboard in each room. The houses were so small that at night the whole floor had to be used as a bed, but during the day the house was usually empty: the adults were at work, while children went to the school or played in the street. Of course, the author never visited a in North Korean private home, since no sane North Korean would dare to talk to a foreigner in public for any considerable length of time, let alone invite a foreigner into his/her private home. However, it was not too difficult to see the interior from outside, especially since the curtains were not much used in Pyongyang.  

Ondol hearths were fed with coal briquettes. These briquettes were made from coal-dust by rudimentary hand-operated presses. Until recently, the same coal briquettes and primitive equipment for producing them could also be seen in Seoul (though by now in South Korea they have been largely replaced by gas and oil heating). Chimneys formed somewhat an eccentric feature of North Korean houses. Usually, they comprised a simple piece of iron water pipe, often crooked and dusty. In most cases, the chimneys emerged from a house's wall, or sometimes they went through the roof. 

The density of construction in the poor districts was very high. Probably, about 30-40% of all land was occupied by houses with space left only for small kitchen gardens and narrow paths between the residences. On very rare occasions, these paths were concreted, but normally they were unsealed and dusty. 

In the slums, there was some water supply but no sewage at all, so people had to use one public toilet for every 5 to 10 houses. Flush toilets were unheard of anywhere but in the most privileged apartment complexes. Many of our North Korean roommates who came from the countryside told us that they had only seen such thing as a flush toilet since coming to Pyongyang. Inside private houses, there was often no water tap either, so between the huts there could sometimes be seen elaborate pavilions. These were well-houses, the centre of the quarter's life. Next to a well, there would be a small yard where children played while in the well-house women pumped water, did their laundry and exchanged gossip. 

In the slums, there were also some offices which were apparently intended for meetings and the activities of the local administration. These occupied the same humble huts, however their exterior was decorated with appropriate slogans and posters. Slogans could also be seen on some ordinary houses as well. As it was explained to us, from time to time every family was ordered to write a slogan and put it outside their house, so such inspiring declarations as "Long live the Dear Ruler Comrade Kim Chông Il!" or "All-out to grasp the tempo of the 1980s!" could be seen on some humble huts. It has to be said that the population obviously did not show any particular zeal in this regard and a slogan written on a narrow piece of paper in crooked letters did not make much of an impression.  

The new high-rise buildings were also not particularly comfortable by Soviet, let alone Western, standards and were often even more crowded than the traditional huts. Nevertheless, the majority definitely preferred them to traditional housing. This was understandable. In modern buildings there was plumbing, lighting, sewage, and even an elevator though the latter functioned, if at all, only a couple of hours in the evenings and the mornings. I can say little about modern houses' interior. After all, one could look through a window into a hut, but in case of a modern building it was not that easy. From the street, one could see through the windows only the ceiling and walls all covered in the same wallpaper, traditional portraits of the Great Leader and the Dear Ruler, and a single luminescent light-fitting which, in the provinces, often could not boast a modest lampshade. 

In October and November, the whole city received supplies, necessary for making a traditional Korean spicy fermented cabbage - kimch'i. Every adult Korean (or according to other sources, every family) was given coupons enabling him/her to buy 80 kg of raw cabbage as well as some pepper and other necessary ingredients. A well-made kimch'i was a matter of honour for every Korean woman: if it was tasty, it could add great variety to the North Korean monotonous diet, and it was a major source of vitamins throughout the winter, as well. While women were busy chopping the cabbage and preparing the spices, the men would dig out large pits for the huge clay jars in which the kimch'i would be kept. The pits were then covered with wooden planks so to form a small hatch which was then covered with a wooden lid and locked. It formed a kind of cellar, though it would last one season. Every family had its own cellar, so during the usually snowless Korean winters, city yards made a peculiar picture: they were dotted with wooden lids which covered the pitches with kimch'i jars. Usually, the supplies lasted until April. Thus, in the early spring, the wooden lids would disappear from the yards, and lines of empty jars would begin to form by the fences. 

An exotic detail of the Pyongyang 'cityscape' was the unusual abundance of field telephones lines which could be seen hanging on trees in the parks, on the street and in the courtyards. Sometimes, these lines wound around trees like a spider's web. The reason for their abundance was that various army units and military agencies were required to take care about their own communication needs, since the public telephone network was much too underdeveloped. Private telephones were practically unheard of, and I saw only two or three public phones in the whole city. A personal phone at home was a rare privilege available to very high level cadres only. Outside Pyongyang, the situation was even worse: my roommate from Hamhûng, one of the biggest industrial centres in the country, told me that in his city there were no automatic telephone exchanges at all and phone conversations were handled through an operator. In the 1980s, only Pyongyang and Kaesong had automatic exchanges, and the situation obviously has not improved much since then. 

At first glance, the majority of new houses in Pyongyang seemed to have been assembled from panels, but this was again a deliberately created illusion. Buildings were put together from non-standard concrete blocks looking rather like large bricks. Only later on the structures were painted the lines to create an impression they were made of "proper" blocks and panels. However, Soviet experts who then worked on some Korean construction sites, told the author that the quality of construction work was reasonably good ("much better than you would expect with such scanty and obsolete machinery", as one of them put it). The low technological level was somewhat compensated by hard work and good discipline. 

Indeed, in 1985, as well as now, construction technology in North Korea left much to be desired. Primitive cranes with makeshift cabins made from rough wooden planks and small cement mixers were the only mechanical devices to be seen on construction sites. Workers raised cradles with painters to the third and the fourth floors manually, using only primitive blocs. The work process, however, was well co-ordinated: instructions were quickly followed, and virtually everybody was busy doing his/her job (a sharp contrast to Soviet construction endeavours, where endless breaks were the norm). Once, the author observed how a group of workers put a huge, three to four meter high, window glass in place: it took them just a few minutes, though they did not use any instruments except for sticks and ropes. 

Construction work was often performed by soldiers, or by members of a special militarised youth building organisation -- "shock units" (kor. tolgyôktae), while civil builders were relatively rare. Sometimes, adjoining a building site there would also be temporary barracks in which soldier-builders lived. 

Diplomats appraised of constant and quite inexplicable re-building going on in Pyongyang. This the author soon saw for himself: opposite the Soviet embassy, there was a newly-constructed apartment block, completed just a few months earlier. Suddenly, builders appeared again on the site. They first demolished the upper floor of the structure and then built two or three more floors. Some time later, another house in the neighbourhood was first almost demolished and then rebuilt with one additional floor. Such strange cases were then typical in the centre of Pyongyang. 

Already in 1985, there were some problems with lighting the city. The economic crisis had not begun to really bite, and cheap Soviet or Chinese raw materials still were flowing into Korea, but shortages of electricity were becoming common, so only some central streets were lit. However, even under the regime of an increasingly struggling economy, the monuments to Kim Il Song were generously illuminated: around the Arc of Triumph, for instance, it was fairly light even at a kilometre distance. However, this illumination was switched off around midnight and Pyongyang was plunged into almost complete darkness. 

Only a few major roads and streets were paved with asphalt. Oil and oil products were imported and there had always been a considerable shortage of it, even in the better times, when oil could still be bought from the USSR at a huge discount. In the capital, the main streets were covered with asphalt, although pavements were usually paved with properly laid concrete blocks or simply covered with concrete. Construction sites were also fenced off with temporary walls, often made of the concrete blocks taken from the pavements adjacent to the new building. After the construction was complete, blocks would be returned to their original place. 

In the 1960s, when all private trade, as well as tending private plots of land, were forbidden, private markets also disappeared from the cities. Economic reality, however, turned out to be stronger than ideological constructs or administrative bans and semi-legal markets started to emerge again. Not without reluctance, the authorities were forced to relax the initial restrictions, and some time around 1980, the markets (and private kitchen gardens) began to make a gradual comeback. 

However, in the mid-1980s markets were still seen as rather inappropriate for the capital of a "socialist paradise". They were as something to be shamed of, so they were pushed to the margins of the city, away from the official and highly symbolical space of central Pyongyang. Most markets were located in places more or less hidden from view, inside residential blocks or on small streets, while the main city market was set up under a huge viaduct at the easternmost part of Pyongyang, as far from the city centre as it was physically feasible. All markets were rather small, surrounded by high walls and always crowded with people. In some places, there would gather groups of suspicious-looking people. Obviously they were selling prohibited items. Often, these groups would consist solely of men: self-made spirits were also popular in Korea. On the whole, many items unavailable in shops could be easily found in these markets, however in comparison to the then Soviet markets with which the author was very familiar, the assortment of goods was not impressive, to put it mildly. It was also remarkable that there was not much food for sale -- just some apples, meat, ducks and chicken, soybeans, home-made sweets, occasionally -- fish and potatoes. There was neither rice or grain sold (at least, openly) in the markets. Prices were exorbitant: a kilo of pork in 1985 cost some 20 won, or about a third of an average monthly salary, and a chicken would cost 30-40 won. Obviously, food at such prices could be bought only by the few and only on special occasions. About two-thirds of the vendors were selling not food but all kinds of consumer goods: clothes, imported -- mostly Chinese -- medicines, tobacco and various consumption goods. More expensive goods, such as tape recorders and cameras, could also be bought here, but were not put on open display -- perhaps, their trade was prohibited. 

Small-scale trade was also conducted on the streets. In the early 1980s the old regulations were relaxed, and trade was not so strictly prohibited. In the mid-1980s, few signs heralded a dawn of the North Korean private trade. In the evenings, female vendors often could be encountered at the subway stations, squatting in a traditional Korean pose and selling home-made pins, combs or hairpins. There were few buyers, but, apparently, these women managed to make some profit from their modest businesses. 

At first I did not see any factories in the city, but later I managed to locate them along the railway lines. However, these factories resembled large workshops rather than modern industrial enterprises. The level of technology used in these factories could be judged by their products. The bodies of trolley buses were made manually since, apparently, at the Pyongyang trolley bus factory there were no hydraulic presses large enough. The necessary shaping of sheet metal was achieved by hammering, and thus the surface was covered with dents and holes. Electricity wiring was tacked to trolley bus ceiling were extended directly on the ceiling while its plywood plates often hung and flapped above passengers' heads. It should be said, however, that the backward technologies were partly compensated for by diligent and persistent labour. For example, these badly made trolley buses were kept spotlessly clean -- sharp contrast to the then Soviet ones, which were technically much more advanced, but always dirty.  

A majority of North Koreans cars and trucks were extremely old and worn out. In fact, the DPRK looked like a huge museum of the automobile history. In the streets of Pyongyang, one would often encounter cars of 30 or 40 years whose sides were covered with red stars, each star symbolising it having travelled 50 000 kilometres. Some cars sported more than a dozen such stars, symbolising a running life of 600,000 km or even more! One could only wonder how much effort North Korean drivers and mechanics had to put into some Soviet-made ZIS-150s produced in the 1950s in order to keep them on the road. 

The main type of public transport in the city was the trolley bus. This made perfect sense, since petrol was imported and scarce, while electricity, necessary to run the trolley buses, was produced locally. Altogether, there were about 15 different routes in Pyongyang which were marked not by numbers but by the name of the last stop. The numbers were used as well, but they distinguished not the route, but particular stops along the given route. Thus, for instance, there were three trolley buses which went from the First Department Store to the Sadon quarter. They travelled the same route but stopped at different places and were marked by digits 1, 2, and 3. This system was often very inconvenient, however, since it had been established on the personal instruction of Kim Il Song, it could not be changed. 

A fare for a trolley bus, as well as a bus, trip was 10 chôn, and thickets were sold in most shops. When a trolley bus stopped, a conductor would emerge and stand near the back door (which was for entrance only) and collect tickets from the intending passengers, while passengers who had arrived at their destination were leaving the bus through the front door. Waiting for a trolley bus, people formed queue and, remarkably, would fill the bus very quickly without any rushing. Conductors were mainly women clad in a military style uniform of khaki and a cap with a big red star. The same uniform was also worn by the drivers. Women drove most trolley buses, however I have never seen a single female bus or truck driver. 

There were few buses in Pyongyang, with full timetables only on week-days. At weekends there was a bus service in the mornings and the evenings only. The main reason was the constant shortage of petrol. The vast majority of the North Korean bus fleet consisted of old Czech Skodas from the 1950s, although sometimes a Hungarian Ikarus-260 could be seen (and their number grew by the late 1980s). 

Besides old Soviet-made trucks, many Japanese vehicles could be seen in Pyongyang, though about half of all truck parks consisted of Soviet-designed vehicles built in North Korea: Sûngni (a carbon copy of the Soviet GAZ-51), Chajuho (Soviet KrAZ-256) and their later modifications. Most Koreans were not aware that these cars were built under licenses from the Soviet Union, since the official ideology of "self-reliance" did not approve of spreading such information. Among other automobiles, there were many Volvos and Mercedes, usually quite expensive, used by high level cadres as their chauffeured transport. Sometimes, Soviet-made cars could also be seen, however North Korean officials obviously preferred to spend the state money on Mercedes and Volvos rather than on the much cheaper but awkward Soviet-made Volgas and Moskvichs. 

Since the early 1980s, the subway has been of particular significance for public transportation. Its two lines were functioning in the western part of the city, but none of them crossed the Taedonggang river back then (there were -- probably unfounded -- rumours that an attempt at such a crossing resulted into a major disaster some time in the 1970s). The subway had some clearly military features: it was extremely deep, with numerous hermetically closing gates, and with invariably long and winding tunnels connecting a station to an escalator entrance. The stations were decorated with the pompous luxury reminiscent of the Moscow subway during Stalin's times, including marble, mosaics, stained-glass windows, frescoes, huge bronze chandeliers and other extravaganza. The impression was somewhat spoiled by the poor lighting. Due to the economy regime only about half of the available lighting was used at any one time. Short trains consisting of only three carriages run fairly infrequently, with 7-10 minutes intervals between. Nor were there many passengers: people in Pyongyang went to bed very early and from 1 January 1985, the subway closing hours were changed from 11:00 to 10:30 pm. 

Though normally there were not many people in the subway, during rush hours crowds often became dense and uncontrollable. The problem was that in the subway it was not customary to wait for disembarking people as was the case with boarding a bus or trolley bus. When a carriage stopped, it was a free-for-all and as the outgoing current began to ebb, the stragglers were often forced inside again by those rushing in. Everybody would fight their way in or out quite unceremoniously, relying mainly on his/her own elbows. 

All subway staff were dressed in a dark-blue military style uniform and wore signs signifying different ranks, more or less similar to those which existed in the army. According to some North Koreans, some staff were enlisted into subway service as if into the army. Over their several years of service, they would live in barracks and were subjected to a military discipline. Most of them were women -- young and stocky round-faced girls, obviously from the countryside. To serve on the underground system was said to be a rather prestigious occupation although it included a lot of hard manual labour , especially with cleaning the stations. 

The taxi service in Pyongyang was run by several international hotels and was for the exclusive use of foreigners. According to older diplomats, in the 1950s, there was an attempt to create a taxi service available to common Koreans. However, in the 1960s, this “common people’s” taxi service for common people was abolished. Taxi fees in Pyongyang taxi did not depend on the distance or time travelled but were fixed amount. In 1985, this amount was 5 won, although later this was raised significantly. Apparently, such a system afforded a better degree of control over the drivers and valuable foreign currency. 

Though generally in East Asia the most popular type of transport is the bicycle, in North Korea, unlike Vietnam or China, cyclists were banned from entering the capital (this situation changed in the early 1990s, however). In other cities some cycles were to be seen, although they were not common, perhaps because of a high price of a bike. 

Every major intersection in Pyongyang was provided with a pedestrian underpass although there was hardly any traffic on the streets. New quarters in the capital looked somewhat surreal: wide but completely empty streets with underpasses at virtually every intersection. The police strictly insisted that people use the nearest underpass, and no exception was made even for the foreigners, who were normally treated with considerable lenience. At every major intersection there were policemen (or, more often, policewomen) regulating the near-absent traffic, but no traffic lights at all. 

As far as inter-city travel was concerned, in 1984-85, there were no regular domestic air services in the DPRK (though some foreign-published materials insisted on the contrary), however domestic flights could be undertaken if they were chartered by foreigners with special permission by the authorities, or, sometimes, by groups of the high-level cadres. In the first case foreign passengers were ready to pay in hard currency (usually these were groups of Japanese tourists), and in the second - local bosses on tours of inspection. 

The main transport in the DPRK was the railway, though for short distances there existed intercity buses. The main railway station is situated in the centre of western Pyongyang, and it was a fairly imposing yet rumbling building in the style of Stalinist neo-classicism. It was apparently built by Soviet architects (or under their inspiration) in the mid-1950s. As at other North Korean railway stations, the platform was fenced off and the only entrance from the waiting hall was guarded by a female controller in railway uniform and two soldiers equipped with their Kalashnikovs. Entering the platform was possible only after showing one's ticket, ID and a travel permit issued by the police. Since the Korean war, movement in North Korea has been restricted and travel to another county or province required a police permit, which was often difficult to obtain. This system was greatly relaxed in the 1990s, however back in 1985 the limitations were extremely tight. Passengers were allowed on the platform 10-15 minutes before the time of departure: once on the platform, they would rush to the train as fast as they could as of taking the carriages by storm. Apparently, seats in the carriages were not numbered and in order to get a better seat, everybody tried to push their way forward with elbows. 

Railway carriages looked dirty and worn-out, often with broken windows. At night, they were very dimly lit, if at all. Not surprisingly, during our rare trips around the country, officials supervising us stopped any attempt to examine them closer, or even look into the windows. Nevertheless, it was possible to see something. Inside the carriage one could see hard wooden benches crowded with people. Many of them had to sit or lay on the floor, using old cloth or paper to provide a semblance of cleanliness. There were also carriages with soft seats but these were few and reserved for medium and high officials. Another type of carriage had sleeping compartments. However, these vehicles could only be used by foreigners and the high level cadres, while common folk could never purchase the tickets to ride in such opulence. These carriages were much similar to the Soviet ones: in each compartment there were 4 berths and a small table with a lamp. Perhaps, they were even produced in the USSR or under the Soviet license. 

Most passengers travelled in the common-class carriages. Given that Korea is a fairly small country this might not seem such a huge problem. However, trains moved at a speed of about 20-30 km an hour and thus even a trip on a short trip would mean a whole night spent on a tough bench or simply on the floor. 

A city is not just buildings, cars and roads, but also people. Unfortunately, the daily life of North Koreans remained inaccessible to foreign students at the time. The main reason was that the authorities went to great lengths to prevent contacts between the population and foreigners. Later I was told that the restrictions were somewhat relaxed in the mid-1990s, but back in the 1980s it was impossible to strike up a conversation with Koreans who did not belong to a small group of people specially authorised to deal with the foreigners. At best they would answer some simple directional questions, but this was not necessarily always the case. Sometimes even a fairly innocent question would remain unanswered and the poor Korean virtually run away from such a dangerous encounter (in the 1970s this was the norm, but by the 1980s this was slowly becoming the exception). Fortunately, our roommates, though part-time police informers, eventually became quite open and frank, such that they would answer some non-political questions with a remarkable degree of openness. 

Pyongyang rose early. Work at most factories started at 7 o'clock while offices were opened around at 8 o'clock. At 8 am classes also began at schools and colleges, so by 7 in the morning the streets were full of people. Perhaps, the most remarkable among these were children who marched to school singing songs. It was considered “too individualistic” and, hence, improper for children to walk to school alone, so they had to gather at a certain place and from there, march under supervision of a specially appointed commander (also a student of the same school). This was said to improve their spirit of collectivism. While marching, they also had to sing. Without exception, they sang about the Great Leader (Kim Il Song) and the Dear Ruler (Kim Chông Il), about their boundless modesty and great care for the people. To a Russian ear, these "masterpieces of the unique chuch’e music school" sounded virtually indistinguishable from the Soviet tunes of the 1950s. Such marching and singing exercises were supposed to bring up children in the spirit of "socialist collectivism". One has to admit that as a result of these daily marching drills, groups of Pyongyang schoolgirls normally had much better bearing than, say, the soldiers of an average Soviet Army unit. 

People in Pyongyang were dressed very modestly, yet real poverty and destitution was rarely obvious. In the summer, most women wore a simple white blouse and skirt, though some girls preferred elaborate dresses of a bygone European style with ruffles, somewhat similar to what our mothers used to wear in the late 1950s. Korean women seldom wore traditional national costume, only at particular celebrations or while pregnant (or posing for photographers for the Korea monthly). Trousers were also rather unusual for women, and were worn only as working dress. 

Men in the summer wore white shirts and trousers. A North Korean dandy of the mid-1980s would be expected to have three items: a wristwatch, an umbrella, and Japanese sunglasses. Each of these items would cost their owners not just a lot of money, but also much effort since nothing, except for watches, could be bought in shops, even using coupons. During the cold weather, men would wear both Western suits and "Mao suits". In 1985, Mao suits still prevailed, though they were already giving place to "overseas clothes" (yangbok), as European-type suits were called in Korean. The advance of the suits and gradual demise of the Mao suit became particularly noticeable in 1984, when after a 25-year hiatus Kim Il Song himself returned to the western suit and necktie. Following this, a period of mass change in the dress-code of the bureaucrats began, and, as usual, the "masses" were not far behind. 

On the whole, the officials or "cadres" stood out in the crowd and were distinguishable from common folks at first glance. They wore a Mao jacket (or, increasingly, western style suits) made from quality woollen cloth, with a pen sticking out from the pocket, a leather folder in their hands and leather shoes, (rather then traditional cloth sneakers) on their feet. Add to this an air of self-importance and the obvious results of good diet (in the shape of a noticeable belly) and the image of a typical North Korean nomenklatura cadre would be complete.  

In the winter, the dress changed but not so much as might be expected. The reason being that for some Koreans, a winter coat was an unattainable dream, while the others would try to spare their coats and thus wore them rarely, only on the bitterest of winter days. Students often would have no winter clothes at all. Winters in Korea are quite cold so it was painful to see how teenage girls would walk a mile or more wearing just thin synthetic suits and cloth-and-rubber shoes when it was 15 degrees below zero. Among young people, it was even rather chic not to wear winter coats even when it was very cold. Once, a group of Korean female university students gathered near our dormitory. They all wore light uniforms while their "boss", a young man, who was a local party supervisor, arrived wearing a coat (albeit rather thin). His "warm" dress instantly became the target of incessant joking. The girls kept making fun of him until the poor fellow fled to return soon without his coat, dressed like the others. 

Many women walked with a child on their back. Strangely enough, this centuries old custom was made almost state secrete in the DPRK. In no film or picture could one see a woman with a child on her back or a load on her head. The only exception were scenes where the "dark colonial past" or the "awful life in South Korea" were depicted. In the DPRK, children were supposed to be carried in baby carriages only, although in real life I saw such a carriage only once. A reason for these regulations is not clear -- maybe somebody among the cadres (probably , either Kim Junior or Kim Senior) decided that a woman with a child on the back or a load on the head would be perceived as a sign of "oriental exoticism and backwardness" to western viewers. Though no North Korean bosses -- and, for that matter, hardly any North Korean at all -- had ever read Said's writings on orientalism, they may have been right in this assumption. 

All generalisations are wrong, however would still would dare to say that Koreans love their children very much. Amongst poverty, children -- and particularly small children -- were well-dressed and even in the slums, kindergartens looked comparatively well-cared for and well-equipped. If a woman with a child entered a subway carriage, there would always be a small fuss: people would vacate their places for her, while the child would become the centre of attention being caressed and entertained. Children are a favourite topic of conversation and even the toughest Korean becomes soft if asked about their own children or grandchildren. The regime’s propaganda also made a good use of this cultural peculiarity, since smiling, well fed and visually happy children were depicted in endless posters and pictures as a proof of alleged happiness which the North Koreans enjoyed under the wise leadership of the Kims.  

Students normally wore a uniform. At universities the uniform colour was green: girls wore green sleeveless dresses and blouses over white shirts, while the male student uniform consisted of suits and caps. Uniforms were compulsory during classes and often worn outside classes as well, so college students could be easily identified. And they were quite numerous. By the mid-1980s, there were about 15 institutions of higher education in Pyongyang. Apart from the two most prestigious schools -- Kim Il Song university and Kim Ch'aek Politechnical Institute (College) -- there were also Institutes (Colleges) of education, agriculture, construction, light industry, railways, medicine, foreign languages, international relations (also very prestigious institution), arts, theatre and cinematography, a conservatorium and possibly more. 

The colleges of the capital occupied a special place in the country's education system. Taking entrance exams in the capital was not everybody's right. Koreans could not leave their places of residence without special permission from the authorities. Only the best graduates of provincial schools were permitted to go to Pyongyang, where they could try their luck (and the strength of the parents’ connections) in the entrance exams. The rest had to be satisfied with provincial colleges, or simply went to work, soon to be followed by a lengthy stint of military service. These unlucky ones could reapply for college admittance while in the army. Permission was given on the basis of academic merit, however a "good social origin" was also much taken into account. Family connections played a very important role, and two students openly admitted to the author that they got into the university because their fathers were well-placed cadres and "could do anything". However, the majority of students were more mature since they had already served several years in the army before attending college. 

The presence of the army was very strongly felt in Pyongyang. Among the people on the streets, there were many military personnel, often whole units marched by, in a field uniform and arms. Soldiers worked at many construction sites and their barracks could often be seen at the city's edges. Streets were patrolled by armed soldiers and almost every hill on the city's outskirts was occupied by locators or AA gun batteries. Their crews often consisted of college students who practised as future officers. Strangely enough, military positions sometimes were not even fenced, so on a few occasions I managed to enter these sites literally under the noses of cannons. I did it by incident and felt uneasy, expecting if not a formal interrogation than at least lengthy and difficult explanations, as would be the case in the then Soviet Union. However, nothing happened. I was hardly unnoticed - every foreigner was a subject of close scrutiny in North Korea - but my presence at military installations barely raised an eyebrow. Moreover, when I once lost my way having found myself near an anti-aircraft position, I approached a sergeant who did not seem fazed at all. Instead, the sergeant briefly but politely explained to me how to get to the nearest bus stop! 

Among the military, there were many women, comprising perhaps up to one fifth of the entire personnel. Supposedly, women went to the army voluntarily, but in fact many of them were also enlisted, though selectively. Formally, military service lasted 3 years and 6 months, but in reality demobilisation was always postponed for a few years. How long it was in fact remained unknown to me, although it was obvious that it was very long since those students who had gone through the army had been there on average some 5 to 7 years. Although cadres avoid having their children drafted, in general army service was considered reasonably prestigious: soldiers were well-fed, got free clothing and could easily enter the party. Thus after military service even a villager could hope to become a local official.  

Mock air-raid alarms, organised 5-6 times a year until the end of the 1980s, increased the feeling of a militarised life in Pyongyang. These alarms were quite startling to the unprepared foreigner. About eight in the evening, sirens would be turned on and the whole city plunged into darkness. Windows were covered by thick curtains, street lights went off, the scanty traffic came to a full stop, and only few cars with light shields slowly crawled through the darkness. However, these training sessions were more like shows, as everybody knew about them in advance and people did not seem to taken them seriously. Clearly, in the age of missiles and smart bombs, these exercises had hardly any practical meaning and were probably organised only to remind the populace of the danger war. Their complete uselessness was so evident that after about 1990 they were abolished completely. 

There were lots of people in uniforms in the capital. In addition to the military, uniforms were worn by students and schoolchildren, by subway staff and by the workers of public transportation, by security guards, by railway personnel, by policemen and even by miners (though the latter were rarely seen in Pyongyang). In the DPRK, staff of many institutions had ranks more or less analogous to the military ones and were often subjected to military-style discipline. Among uniformed personnel, people in a green uniform with signs on the badges, were perhaps most numerous. These young men and women were members of the so called "shock units", a semimilitary construction organisation. They worked mostly on construction sites and sometimes did unskilled work at factories. Young people were conscripted into these units, lived in barracks, and received some basic military training.  

The working day in Korea started at 7 or 8 o'clock and lasted, with compulsory meetings, about 10 hours. The working week was six days, and given a near absence of home mechanisation, inhabitants of Pyongyang obviously did not have much free time. This made their leisure hours and days even more precious. 

Picnicking appeared to be one of the most popular pastimes. On their free days, usually on Sundays, large groups of people, numbering a dozen or even more, would go to the city parks or large suburban Taesôngsan park. There they would lay some makeshift tables or just place a cloth on the grass, eat, drank and have their fun. All participants would sing in turns, play games or engage in mock sporting competitions followed by dancing. Rarely, there was a tape recorder: usually music was substituted by the clapping of hands. Sometimes, next to a big company a bus could be seen meaning that a whole work unit was picnicking with their families. 

From time to time, one could observe groups of card players. Unlike South Korea, where the Japanese hwat'u (themselves a variation of the sixteenth-century Portuguese cards) are popular, North Koreans used European-type cards, imported from the Soviet Union. In the late 1970s, playing cards were still strictly forbidden, however by 1985 the prohibition had been lifted.  

People often sang in public. In the evenings on weekends, one could often see groups squatting around a guitar player. In general, the guitar appeared to be the most popular musical instrument. On the streets, bypassers, particularly girls, often hummed melodies. Their repertoire was different from that which could be heard on the radiô they understandably preferred not marches, but lyrical songs, of the type popular in the Soviet Union in the 1950s. However, there remained the customary reference to the Great Leader or Dear Ruler even in these songs. There was no such a thing as apolitical lyrics in North Korea. 

During major festivities, in Kim Il Song square (by the Grand's People Study House) - the main square in the capital -- public dances took place. Foreigners living in Pyongyang could and were even encouraged to participate in this event. The dances started at 19:00 and lasted about an hour. It was an impressive show. Men came in their best suits while women wore their most colourful traditional dresses. The unusual brightness of the clothes, as well as the music and lights, created an elevated atmosphere of great celebration. 

In the more picturesque corners of the capital one could witness weddings. Couples would often have their photos taken at the Mansudae theatre , or on the tranquil green banks of the Pot'onggang river. The marriage age was high: 27 years for men and 25 for women, and only in 1985, it was lowered to 24 and 22 years respectively (these restrictions were obligatory but not officially disclosed). Answering our questions about these limits, North Korean officials and University professors would tell us that early marriage was harmful since the "youth need to be devoted to the service of the Great Leader and the building of socialism and communism". Students were categorically forbidden to marry even if they were well above the marriage. If this rule was broken, the student would be thrown out of university. The same punishment was intended to sexual relationships, however the authorities usually turned a blind eye to the student sex, unless it ended up in a public scandal.  

Traces of the Kims cult could be seen everywhere. There were colossal statues, enormous monuments, virtually millions of portraits (in every room, on every bus, at every major intersection, on badges and so on). In book shops, approximately a fourth of all books were the works of Kim Il Song and Kim Chông Il, another fourth were commentaries on these works and literature on the "chuch’e idea", while the rest was special, technical and children’s literature, as well as fiction, usually about the activities of Kim Il Song or, less often, about the combative and labour feats of Koreans loyal to their Leader. Nevertheless, even these dull works were not particularly numerous. In the Museum of Fine Arts, the largest part was taken up by a department of modern Korean art in which all pictures were devoted either to Kim Il Song directly, or illustrated Korean slogans. Needles to say, they were and executed in the “socialist realist” style, much reminiscent of the Soviet art of the 1950s. 

In the Museum of Fine Arts we were shocked to see how works from the Later Yi Dynasty (17-19th cc.) were hung on the whitewashed walls immediately above the heating radiators while a guide felt free to scratch them with a long wooden pointer. Surprised by such an attitude to the old arts, we asked whether the exhibits were copies. "No, they are originals", -- the girl said proudly and turned to another picture - a wonderful landscape with a view of 18th century Pyongyang. "Here", -- she said with an appropriate tone of pathos, -- "we can see Mansudae Hill, a place where a monument to our Great Leader is now located!" -- and she again almost pierced the old paper while pointing at Mansudae hill! All official "masterpieces of chuch’e art" are preserved with great care and nobody would dare touch with a pointer the face of Kim Il Song, the main character of most modern North Korean painting. 

However inefficient the economic system was, one could not but admire the hard work of the North Koreans. The national economy was in very bad shape, but if it still functioned somehow, it was mainly due to the hard work of many people. Under the extremely difficult conditions they managed to perform complicated operations, produce equipment and instruments sometimes virtually without any machines. The order and cleanliness in Pyongyang were exemplary. Streets and pavements were cleaned, the pavement edges were painted white, trees were surrounded with small stones, their trunks also painted white. There were no lawn-mowers, so the grass was not just cut but... plucked by hand! Many times we saw groups of women who, squatting in the Korean fashion, plucked at the grass. Once I saw an impressive, though slightly bizarre, sight: on the central square of Pyongyang (Kim Il Song square) twenty or thirty women plucked the grass which grew between the concrete blocks of the pavement. 

How do the people of Pyongyang live? It should be remembered, that the capital was a very privileged city where not everybody could live and where there were more possibilities to satisfy one's material needs. Nevertheless, nobody would call the people of Pyongyang affluent. 

Since the beginning of the 1960s, all supplies in the DPRK were distributed on the basis of an all-encompassing coupon system. Norms, rations and coupons existed for everything, from TV sets to rice to frogs to shoes. Without coupons, nothing but books and stationery could be bought. In fact, for a few decades, there had been no real trade in the DPRK as everything was distributed rather than sold. Meanwhile, prices on rationed food were kept low. Despite their small incomes, people still had considerable savings as there was nothing to spend money on. 

According to foreign observers, in the mid 1980s, the average salary in Korea was 60-70 won per month, though Koreans themselves told me about an even smaller amount -- about 50-60 won. Workers were paid from 45 to 100 won a month (70 won on average) which was much less than the salaries of cadres, engineers, and technicians. A young engineer after graduation, having the lowest of four engineering grades, would receive 100-110 won, while an engineer with the highest grade was paid 150-170 won. 

Even before the total collapse of the Korean economy in 1991-1993, the diet of people in the capital was far from good. A daily ration consisted of a bowl of rice with kimch'i and a bowl of watery soup. Food was vegetarian as meat was unavailable to most people. North Koreans drank hot water or rice water, drinks such as tea or coffee were known to them more from books and films. Students living with us in the dormitories, except for the children of high officials, drank tea with us for the first time in their lives. One of them even asked, after he had tea for first time, whether he was supposed to eat the small tea leaves left in the bottom of his cup! 

In the relatively benign year of 1985, every working adult in the capital could on average get 500 g of rice and/or other crops daily in coupons. Different groups of the population had different norms. Thus, children of pre-school age received 300 g, schoolchildren -- 400 g, dependent members of the family -- 300-400 g, working adults -- 700 g, while the workers in more difficult trades (miners, metallurgists, and railway drivers among them) -- up to 900 g. However, in reality they received even less, as about 15% of the norm was officially taken for the "strategic reserves". 

This quantity consisted partially of crops other than rice. In the privileged city of Pyongyang, a normal share of rice in 1985 amounted to 50-70% of the cereal allocation, while in the provinces three-fourth of cereal allocation was less tasty and nutritious corn or barley. Additionally, one person could get 1-1,5 litres of vegetable oil per month and about ten eggs. Once a year, prior to the preparation of kimch'i -- the traditional Korean spicy marinated cabbage - cabbage and pepper were sold via coupons. In addition, Koreans could get small quantities of fish, soybeans, and potatoes, once a year they could also obtain apples, a soy souses kanjang and twenjang. Although I did not manage to find the exact portions of these foods, obviously, they were very small: all these, perhaps except for fish, appeared on the table only during the celebratory days as rare delicacies. 

During major celebrations, (the birthdays of the Kims, the foundation of the KWP foundation, and solar New Year) North Koreans received special food packages which were called "gifts from the Great Leader" or "gifts from the Dear Ruler". Usually, such a gift included a half kilo of sugar and candies, or a package of fruits. Children in schools and kindergartens were given biscuits and fruits, with the explanations, that it was a declaration of the limitless care of the Great Leader for which they had to answer with "ardent loyalty". Besides, in Pyongyang, and only in Pyongyang, younger school children received a glass of milk every day. Prior to major national festivities, 2-3 times a year, meat was distributed, about a kilo per person. It was not uncommon to get some sweets, especially for children in schools, but the distribution of sugar ceased some time in the 1970s. 

There was a huge gap between the diet of the commoners and that of the elite. All over Pyongyang, there were small shops without signboards and with shadowed windows. These were special shops where the cadres received their generous rations. Unlike the old Soviet Union, this system of privileged distribution existed in the DPRK almost in the open. In addition, some top cadres received their salaries partly in hard currency. It allowed them to frequent hard-currency shops. Indeed, in such shops there were more Koreans than foreigners, cars with the number plates of the Central Committee filled the parking lot in front of the Nakwôn shop, Pyongyang's main hard-currency supermarket. Meat, eggs, milk and other rare delicacies were part of officials' daily diet. 

Speaking about the availability of consumer goods to North Koreans, one has to start with the wristwatch. It was a very prestigious thing, a status statement of sorts. Watches were very expensive: usually Soviet-made mechanical watches, available at that time to any school-boy in the USSR, were sold in Korean shops for 300 won an item, that is, about a half the annual salary of a Korean worker. Buying a watch was a big event for a common family. I remember a young couple in a trolley bus, who looked with fascination at a small open watch box held by the husband as they happily smiled at one another: it was a special day, they had bought a watch! 

Besides Soviet-made watches, some people had Japanese and Swiss ones which were, of course, considered far more prestigious. However, on Swiss watches, next to the traditional Omega logo, there was written in red letters: "Kim Il Song". Such watches were made on special orders from North Korea. They could not be bought in shops, but were given as a prize or, as it was said in Korea, as a "gift of the Great Leader", to the best workers and cadres. 

By the mid-1980s, most families in Pyongyang had TV sets which were made in Japan, the USSR, China, or North Korea (on Japanese or Rumanian licences). Imported TV sets often had a Korean inscription meaning that they were most probably made on special orders from the DPRK. In shops, a black-and-white TV set cost 700-900 won, yet, apart from money a special order was required to purchase a set. Such an order could be received at one's work-place but only after years of waiting. The most prosperous also had tape-recorders, either bought in hard-currency shops or on the black market, or brought back from abroad. Even at university, where mostly children of the elites of all ranks studied, very few people had tape-recorders, hardly more than one out of ten students. Fridges were practically unknown; one had to be a high cadre to own a fridge. Fridges, of course, could be seen in the windows of the First Department Store, but they could be bought only by coupons which were practically impossible to get even for a low level cadre, let alone commoner. Interestingly enough, in 1980, the delegates of the Sixth KWP Congress were presented with huge modern fridges, as "gifts from the Great Leader", with an inscription in big letters "Paektusan", after a politically symbolic mountain on the Sino-Korean border where, according to official mythology Kim Il Song spent his wartime years (in real life, he was in the USSR back then). Nevertheless, the more observant soon saw in an out-of-the-way place another inscription - "made in Japan", although this in no way lessened the value of the gift. 

On the whole, it was common practice in North Korea to put a Korean label on an imported item, to obscure its foreign origin. Sometimes, it was done by the producers themselves, though quite often it looked like an initiative of the North Koreans. I remember how in a hotel in the Myohyangsan mountains I saw a modern telephone with a Korean inscription ‘Taedonggang’, and was a bit surprised by its modern and interesting design, so unusual for North Korean products. Everything became clear when I turned it upside down and read on the bottom "Hitachi. Made in Japan". 

And finally, few words about the life of those few foreigners who found themselves in, perhaps, the most closed country in the world. Since there were so few foreigners in Pyongyang, they always attracted much attention even in the capital, while in the provinces they created a major sensation. Adults turned their heads starring at them, while kids ran behind shouting: "A foreigner, a foreigner!" Older children never forgot to take their hats off and greeted foreigners with a bow. The children’s surprise was easy to understand: most of them had seen foreigners only in the movies, if ever. The permanent foreign population of Pyongyang then could be counted in hundreds, and the vast majority of the foreign colony were diplomats who seldom ventured out of their embassies or, at least, out of their cars. Tourists also seldom could be seen outside the city centre. Hence, a foreigner walking a Pyongyang street was a very unusual sight indeed.  

This sometimes led to funny situations. Once a young Soviet diplomat went to a small currency shop located in our dorm for foreign students. This shop had only one sale assistant, a woman of about 35 years old. At the time she had her five-year old daughter with her. As the diplomat entered, the daughter was obviously seeing a foreigner for the first time in her life. However, it turned out that she had seen foreigners before in movies and, at the same time, was quite polite and well educated. As most foreigners depicted in North Korean cinema were cunning and corrupt “yanks” -- "American imperialists" -- the polite girl decided to greet the stranger in the way people like he were usually referred to in the movies, saying: "Hello, uncle American imperialist scoundrel!" (Annyông hasipnikka, mijenom ajôssi!) 

I don't know exactly how many foreigners there were in Pyongyang in 1984-1985, but most probably, in the whole country with its 20 million population there would have been scarcely a thousand, excluding tourists and other short-time visitors. There were then about 20 embassies in North Korea, mostly with a small staff of 5-10 people (with wives and children - about 20-30 in each). In addition there were about a hundred foreign specialists with families and a couple of hundred of students. Also, in the summer, 2 or 3 groups of Soviet tourists usually came weekly, as well as groups of Japanese Koreans and representatives of chuch’e study groups and associations. 

Most "permanent" foreigners in the city were diplomats or embassy staff. The majority of the countries which had diplomatic relations with the DPRK appointed their Ambassador to China to represent their interests in North Korea, so permanent missions were few in number. About 1980, the North Koreans built a special 'embassy quarter' in Eastern Pyongyang. Only a few embassies which did not want to move, remained in Western Pyongyang. Among them there were the two by far largest missions, both located on the Sûngni Prospect - the Chinese embassy at the intersection with the Pip'a street and the Soviet Embassy behind the Mansudae Art Theatre. 

On the whole, a foreigner was completely cut off from the ordinary life of Koreans, and we, citizens of a supposedly allied country, were no exception. As I have seen a few times, even people who should have known the North Korean realities very well, still underestimated the degree of the foreigners' isolation. Without a Korean supervisor and special permission, a foreigner could not visit virtually any establishment or organisation, even such an innocent one as a cinema or most museums, neither was it possible to talk to North Koreans if they were not specially selected to work with foreigners. No informal contacts, or regular private meetings were thinkable. All trips outside the city were strictly forbidden, and we could go only on organised tours, accompanied and supervised by Korean staff members.  

At the same time, nobody restricted our movements within the city. We were followed sometimes, although I doubt that it happened frequently. However, we could walk down any street and see virtually what we wanted, as long as it was an open public space. We had to be careful with taking pictures, however. In the 1970s and early 1980s foreigners who tried to take some “improper” pictures were frequently attacked by "incidental passers" and had their cameras broken. These incidents were recurrent enough to warrant an official statement by some East European embassies who requested that these attacks be stopped. The statement helped, but a few times North Korean officials still prevented us from taking "wrong pictures", though in a "nonviolent" way. Once when an East German student took a picture of a woman with a child on her back, the official insisted on having the film exposed immediately. The North Korean women are not supposed to transport their children around in such an archaic manner, after all. 

Foreign students in the Kim Il Song University (then numbering about 20) lived in special dormitories and our contacts with Korean students were reduced to the minimum. The foreigners attended separate classes, organised strictly according to their nationality. Students from one country belonged to the same group even if they came from different schools and had different a level of language proficiency. Attending lectures with North Korean students was forbidden. We were not allowed even to use a library catalogue, and could not enter the room where it was located (the guards prevented foreigners from entering). Books on topics of our interests were selected for us by the North Korean officials. However, in the dormitories, every foreigner shared a room with a specially selected Korean student. For language practice, this was very useful, although in fact the authorities had a different aim in mind. In theory, our roommates were supposed to have two major tasks: propagate the chuch'e ideas among us (nobody showed much enthusiasm for this), and report on us to the officials. Eventually our roommates ceased making a secret of this obvious fact. Every evening at 18:30, a security service functionary, responsible for supervising the foreign visitors at the University, collected all students for a daily report. However, though our roommates were supposed to spy on us, many of them turned out to be clever and interesting people and, besides, often had a rather critical or, at least, realistic, view of the country's situation. 

Foreign students form a relatively small part of the foreign community in Pyongyang. Most numerous were the staff of the embassies and their families. Most of these were housed either in the embassy quarter or in the few "foreigners’ apartments" in other parts of the city. Near the Taedonggyo bridge, on the eastern bank of the Taedonggang, there was a small “diplomatic club”. On the ground floor, there was a restaurant and a cinema, in which foreign movies were shown in the evenings (of course, not decadent Hollywood thrillers but films from fraternal socialist countries, propagating patriotism and labour enthusiasm), and on the upper floor a discotheque with a bar were situated, as well as a billiard room and rooms for card games. The club was opened in the spring of 1984 and soon became the favourite meeting place of foreigners, as well as for unofficial meetings of diplomats. For a while we were also frequent visitors there, but in early 1985 the Soviet Embassy, obviously uneasy about the Soviet students freely socialising with foreigners, decided to forbid these visits. This was a new indication of the fact that much of official Pyongyang paranoia once came from the Soviet Union and China, though in North Korea it has reached the greatest heights, far surpassing its original archetypes. 

International hotels were the centres served the foreigners needs. In the hotels a foreigner could find shops and kiosks, hairdressing saloons, laundries and the like. They charged exorbitant prices and took only foreign currency, but there was not much choice. Quite often, no other service of the same type was available outside. The only dry cleaning shop in the capital was located in the Pyongyang hotel and served only foreigners. Near other main hotels, a hard-currency supermarket known as the Nakwôn (Paradise) was located, in which foreigners, as well as Korean high officials, could buy goods for either hard currency or so-called pakum ton, -- North Korean currency exchange certificates. Another shopping spot for the foreigners was Pyongyang currency shop in the middle of the embassy quarter. Besides shop itself, one could find there some services as well as a small cafe for the foreigners. 

Of all places catering mostly or exclusively to the foreigners' tastes and pockets, one of the most remarkable was a big ice-cream shop-cum-cafe, which opened in the spring of 1985, at the Ch'anggwansan hotel. It was one of the first North Korean joint ventures with Japanese Koreans. The Japanese partners trained all the staff, decorated the hall more or less in accordance with international standards and equipped the kitchen. This establishment did not seem North Korean at all, not just in decoration but also in spirit. Even waitresses did not wear the obligatory hairdo of curled hair (once prescribed for Korean women by Kim Il Song himself), but cut their hair short, in the Japanese fashion. Moreover, they did not even wear the compulsory badges with the portrait of the Great Leader! How the owners managed to get such a privilege is difficult to say but the fact remains: when you were in this cafe without any portrait of Kim the Senior, nothing reminded you that you were still in North Korea. Visitors were mostly foreigners and the "golden youth" - the children of cadres from the neighbouring privileged quarters. 

For few foreign tourists who were paying not in fraternal noncorvertable currencies, but in the real hard stuff, the authorities usually reserved the small but comfortable Pot'onggang hotel. Next to it, there was the low structure of the Ansan club where the citizens of “capitalist countries” used to spend their free time. In the mid-1980s, they could enjoy not just good cuisine but also prostitutes imported from the countries of South East Asia. I remember how a rather unpleasant gentleman from Indonesia complained in the winter of 1985, that the contracts for the Thai prostitutes had expired and they had left, while their colleagues from the Philippines would come only in April. All our deprived friend could do was This poor guy could only wait and complain about the sluggishness of the local authorities. However, this establishment soon went bankrupt from the lack of clients. 

Among the foreigners in Pyongyang, Japanese Koreans were perhaps the most numerous, although most of them were just short-term visitors. There were mainly members of Ch'ongryông, a pro-North Korean organisation of Japanese of Korean extraction. In its Japanese policy, the North Korean government was oriented towards Koreans living in Japan. The delegations and groups of Ch'ongryông could be often seen in North Korea, filling the hotels and resorts for foreigners. Among them, there were many high school and college students. They usually travelled in groups, all uniformed, neat and stiff, very Japanese-looking, so unlike the North Koreans. The only thing which united them with North Korean students were constant formations and checks, undertaken even in the foyers of hotels. It looked very strange when out of a group of elegantly dressed girls and guys suddenly two or three people would emerge and start barking orders: "Stand in row!" or "Stand still!". In a few seconds, the crowd would turn into something more like a military detachment than a group of tourists! 

This is how I saw the North Korean capital some 15 years ago. 

What has changed since? It is clear now, that in the mid-1980s, North Korea was experiencing the last years of stability. The epoch which then could be perceived as a time of poverty soon were to turn times of the relative prosperity. There still was a socialist camp which provided a good and undemanding market for North Korean goods. Though already diminishing, Soviet aid continued to enter the country helping to keep its economy above water. In the late 1980s, North Korea still managed to organise prestigious events, such as International Festival of the Youth and Students in 1989. This huge gathering of the leftist youth proved to be the very last in a long series of such Festivals which began soon after the war. The Festival was made to represent the North Korean answer to the success of the 1988 Seoul Olympic games. For the Festival, a new prestigious quarter in western Pyongyang was built and grandiose tower of a new 105-storied hotel was begun. The latter was done because Kim Il Song, it was said, could not come to terms with the fact that in Seoul, the rival capital, there was a towering 65-storied skyscraper, the highest in the whole of continental East Asia. The feverish building of the completely unnecessary monster was scheduled for completion finished by the summer of 1989 but the country’s resources were exhausted. Soon, the plight of the North Korean economy worsened dramatically, dooming the construction project. The mammoth unfinished pyramid of the hotel still pierces the sky in the North Korean capital. 

The oil crisis led to the number of cars shrinking even more. On the other hand, the tram made its appearance (or, rather, reappearance, since it had existed before the Korean War). People now dress with more variety than before and the time of service jackets and Mao suits has passed, although there are still compulsory badges with portraits of Kim Il Song, recently supplemented by that of Kim Chông Il. The famine which began in the countryside after 1995 had forced the authorities to weaken their control on the people's movement within the country and tolerate more private trade. Markets are much bigger now, and they keep growing, although the prices are still too expensive for many commoners. People are more engaged in money-making, and are subjected to slightly less indoctrination. However, the portraits of Kim Il Song are still present at every square where amplifiers transmit the dulcet tones of endless military marches...  

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