
Rare pictures of North Korea - ldv1971
http://www.mrlevek.com/northkorea.htm
======
boh
VBS has a great first-hand doc of North Korea:
<http://www.vbs.tv/newsroom/vice-guide-to-north-korea-2-of-14>

A lot of what they show resembles Artemii Lebedev's experience.

~~~
geoffw8
Honestly guys, you HAVE to watch this.

~~~
GBond
I've watch a number of "inside NK" documentaries and I agree, this is one of
the better ones (despite the hipster host's somewhat condescending attitude).
There was some good footage of interaction with NK common folks and the host
keep trying to push the buttons of the guide. Give you a sense of how
repressed they are without even knowing.

~~~
zeugma
There is also a very good french comics book :
[http://www.amazon.com/Pyongyang-Journey-North-Guy-
Delisle/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Pyongyang-Journey-North-Guy-
Delisle/dp/1897299214/)

The author describe 3 month of life there.

~~~
balac
I would recommend this too, it gives an interesting look at the somewhat
boring life of a foreigner in NK.

------
whalesalad
Mirror: <http://static.whalesalad.com/north_korea/>

~~~
whalesalad
I adore my extra server headers. Adds a few bytes, whateva.

    
    
      % curl -I http://static.whalesalad.com/north_korea/
      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Server: nginx/0.6.32
      Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2011 23:44:45 GMT
      ...
      Content-Type: text/html
      X-Fueled-By: Plankton
      X-Special-Sauce: Django
      Accept-Ranges: bytes

~~~
EnigmaCurry
I always liked:

X-The-Number: 09-F9-11-02-9D-74-E3-5B-D8-41-56-C5-63-56-88-C0

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js2
Probably previously posted, but "36 hours in North Korea without a guide..."
is really interesting as well:

<http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/>

~~~
verroq
Allow me to express my undying hatred of imageshack since half of the images
refuse to load.

------
g_lined
I did a similar trip to his in April 2007. While you visit, you have to put
aside your issues with the regime, that's not why you're there. You're there
to experience something which seems so implausible yet exists, or rather,
before it doesn't. We got to meet some really nice people and what we saw was
remarkable. If they could make the rest of their country like the capital and
the other places I was shown, then it would be a really nice country in the
political sense. The culture that is there seems to me to be fragile yet
precious. I shudder to think what will happen to it if reunification happens
in anything but a gradual way.

My trip is documented here in the radio show Off The Wall: (link to mp3)
[http://www.2600.com/offthewall/mp3files/2007/off_the_wall__2...](http://www.2600.com/offthewall/mp3files/2007/off_the_wall__20070522.mp3)
and
[http://www.2600.com/offthewall/mp3files/2007/off_the_wall__2...](http://www.2600.com/offthewall/mp3files/2007/off_the_wall__20070807.mp3)

------
rambominator
<http://tema.ru/travel/north-korea-1/> <http://tema.ru/travel/north-korea-2/>
... 5 parts

~~~
sili
This is the original source of the photos in Russian.

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ericmsimons
I remember watching a video where a man in North Korea was trying to eat bark
off of a tree because he was so hungry. It makes me sick even thinking about
it...

~~~
ericmsimons
Wow. Just finished reading the entire article. I can't believe how lucky I am
to live in a free country.

~~~
itistoday
I wish people would stop using that term, "free country". I don't know of very
many "free countries". If you live in the United States, you live in a _free-
er_ country than North Korea, and indeed, that's something to be grateful for,
but you do not live in a truly free country.

In a truly free country, you would, for example, have the freedom to eat
whatever you want (so long as it doesn't impinge on other people's freedoms).
You would be able to have sex with whoever you wanted (so long as both parties
are 'mature enough' to agree). This too, is not the case in the states. You
would be able to marry whoever you wanted. You would be able to do to your
body whatever you wanted. In a truly free country, you would have the freedom
to do things that in today's non-free country we consider taboo, punishable
offenses. Etc.

~~~
ericmsimons
Clearly, a "truly free country" would fall apart instantly due to the
inevitable chaos and evils. Thus why I didn't even bother making the
distinction between "free" and "free-er". I assumed it was common knowledge.

My personal definition of freedom is the ability to do anything within the
realm reasonable laws. I feel a vast majority of US laws are reasonable. Maybe
you don't agree, maybe you do. I'm happy & patriotic US citizen and that's all
that matters!

------
colanderman
I can never get over how Pyongyang has skyscrapers. Given how underdeveloped
the rest of the country looks, I can only surmise that they must dump the
majority of their GDP into building up Pyongyang.

~~~
jacquesm
The single biggest cost component of building a high-rise is wages, in a
planned economy that factor pretty much disappears.

Other than that it's concrete, steel and time. In the former eastblock there
are also plenty of highrises, very few of those would meet your expectations
in terms of construction quality.

Also, highrises are actually more efficient material wise compared to building
individual homes, after all each dwelling shares 4 surfaces with those around
it (except for the edges).

~~~
colanderman
Ah, very good points. I never realized labor was such a costly component in
construction.

------
ssheth
As the website is so slow, it is much better to access the Corel cache
version: <http://www.mrlevek.com.nyud.net/northkorea.htm>

------
heresy
If you've been to the South, the comparison is stark, and it's hard to believe
the two were one country a few decades ago.

That said, if re-unification, happens I imagine the progress in the North will
be rapid, and the country as a whole will become an even stronger regional
power.

~~~
atomical
"That said, if re-unification, happens I imagine the progress in the North
will be rapid, and the country as a whole will become an even stronger
regional power."

South Korea is a prosperous country that has developed in a relatively short
amount of time but North Koreans don't have the education or skill to compete
in a South Korean economy.

~~~
OstiaAntica
Progress was slower than expected when Germany reunified, and North Korea's
poverty is deeper and its culture seems more profoundly damaged.

~~~
eru
There's still a cultural divide in Germany.

------
mrgraham
Added (temporary?) mirror for HN people: <http://212.117.165.225/northkorea/>

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rokhayakebe
All of sudden, my life seems so much more than how I feel about it.

------
r0h4n
Does anyone find the non existent capitalism and zero brands very peaceful?

~~~
SoftwareMaven
I understand what you are saying, but the incredible challenges the people
have just surviving from day to day erase any sense of peace for me. Give me
ads all day if it means my kids are fed, clothed, and educated.

~~~
r0h4n
Peace in NK + healthy democracy, and good organic agriculture + great
universities = heaven.

------
starpilot
It's actually easy to tour North Korea as an American, and many tour companies
offer travel packages for it: <http://wikitravel.org/en/North_Korea#Get_in>.

> In January 2010, North Korea lifted the restrictions on American citizens
> who are now free to visit at anytime of the year.

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adolph
I recently read and liked the first three Inspector O novels. For me, the
novels added a human dimension that the pictures and travelogs miss--what it
is like to live under what I would think of as repression?

Review of the most recent one: <http://www.slate.com/id/2262159/>

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pimeys
One more documentary: <http://www.infinitehumanstupidity.com/new.html>

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mnml_
Mirror: <http://d-ro.ch/2011/01/rare-pictures-of-north-korea/>

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jacquesm
"The system cannot find the file specified."

Better use one of the mirrors in this thread.

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OoTheNigerian
Really clean and good roads. Not everything is bad in North Korea

~~~
jacoblyles
It's amazing how little trash a nation of slaves generates. Also, very few
emissions. It is always Earth Day in North Korea, as the nation does a
remarkable job at conserving electricity[1], unlike decadent Western
societies.

[1][http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8...](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=north+korea+at+night)

~~~
sili
In a life where you have nothing, you do not throw trash away. A lot of stuff
gets re-used.

