Five days in North Korea

Time in Pyongyang is different from Moscow only five hours, but in reality - the difference in a few decades. The North Korean visa is the passport to a world apart, which is impossible to imagine until you see with your own eyes. There are building socialism, but the power is transmitted from father to son. Here, the president of "eternal", the cult leader - unlimited, the Internet - your own, the North Korean. A mobile phone - the privilege of the elite. This essay by Andrey Gordeev - an attempt to describe how ordinary people live in the most closed country in the world.





























"But at home waiting for me to die»

Concentration, in which residents are torn DPRK is in Russia
These workers at a construction site, I suspect, from Moscow either do not notice or think envoys, say, brotherly Kyrgyzstan. But reliable sources in the capital of Oriental Russian signal: at the facilities of Moscow suddenly seen the Koreans. Not our own venerable representatives of the Korean community and those who came from South Korea to engage in business. A construction laborers from the closed to the outside world of the DPRK that compact brigade worked in Moscow in one of the facilities under the supervision of a tribesman with spiky look. In an unexpected question in their own language, they inadvertently admitted that they came from North Korea, but from further conversations resolutely refused.

Get a trip to a labor camp in Russia - the dream of many North Koreans ...
However, workers from Moscow to North Korea - is exotic, they mostly can be found on our Far East. About life of North Korean migrant workers in Russia tell horror, their fate is compared to the fate of prisoners of concentration camps. However, in any case, this particular camp - prisoners themselves are often eager to get there. Become business travelers working in Russia - the dream of many North Koreans, it is the hope for a change in the destiny.

Unreliable in Russia will not be allowed

The objectives of the nomenclature of the DPRK - a career, a bureaucratic machine, apartment in the new high-rise building in Pyongyang, access to the FX market. To get into this circle can not be the majority of the population. But the common people have their way to the little happiness. For example, to become a speculator or scurrying to China smuggler that is profitable, but dangerous. Or get a permit to work abroad - in Russia or China, and maybe away.

In China, of course, for the working life of the DPRK is clear - there are many fellow Koreans, it is easier to navigate. But in Russia, on the other hand, seems to be more profitable for the Japanese journalists interviewed testimony of North Korean defectors, with luck, it is possible for the three-year mission to save as much as one thousand dollars. And then two. For that kind of money in North Korea (Pyongyang does not, of course), you can, as they say the same defectors, build a decent house.

In Russia on the job is sent only to those who are trusted, - the way there, for example, closed unhappy, having relatives in South Korea. However, at the choice, trustworthy, have passed all tests of migrant workers living in Russia - not sugar. For example, the story of the former North Korean workers - as it is recorded by my colleague from the newspaper "Asahi».

This man volunteered to go to Russia in September 1995. "I went for the food," - he says. He was sent to fell trees at Tygda station in the Amur region, where the camp guarded by security staff of the DPRK, was about 7 thousands of North Koreans. Chopped pine, 65% - Russia, 35% - were taken to North Korea. Work - from 8 am to 10 pm, the monthly rate - 3000 cubic meters of wood is almost impossible to perform. Every year in various incidents in the logging died of 3-4. In a good season earnings reached 2-3 thousand dollars a month, but on average earn five hundred dollars. 70% of them took away the state - as his rightful share.

"The biggest real's reliance on my hands the amount was $ 160 per month," - says the guest worker. Half of it is also sent to the authorities of the DPRK - like his family. But the rest of the money he had only seen in the statement - they say, will issue later, at home. Term of assignment was for three years, but all guest-worker forces served in the camp party bosses, a security officer - and he was allowed to stay in Russia. Dog's loyalty has helped to continue: in 2000 it began working to release the left-felling on part-time work - the money he gave his superiors in part, from the "remnants" hoarding cherished "one thousand dollars." Leaving the camp in Russian life was becoming more and more in the wild started dating and suddenly shall think about freedom. In short, in January 2005, has once again asked permission from superiors "a week" and never came back to the camp.

From the same fugitives together a team shabashniks illegal immigrants. They lived in fear apart, fearing North Korean security services. They say the Russian authorities to the good - do not catch the fugitives. But their attempts to track down the security service of the camps - and often successfully. Caught at the feet of the entire length of peg board, and pull the top of the pants. For die-hard legs (not to run away again) under escort is carried out in the camp before the troops of the workers, and then sent home. The fate of these people is clear - the concentration camp, already present.

"Two of my illegal Brigade died from disease - says the fugitive. - I want to move from Russia to South Korea, but no money for that. And at home waiting for me to die ».

End felling

According to the administration of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Russia only officially registered more than a hundred North Koreans hiding runaway, about 30 of them seem to be moved to Moscow.

Meanwhile, the North Korean camps under Tygdoy in the Amur region and the Khabarovsk Territory in Chegodymynom declined: they say there's only a few hundred people. Auknulos, in particular, a sharp increase in Russian export duties on roundwood - business, even with the use of laborers from the DPRK became unprofitable. But North Korean workers in Russia have not disappeared, just now they are said to be used in other jobs. South Korean human rights groups estimate the number of migrant workers in the 15-20 thousand people. By the way, about the same as on official work visas and their sticks in China. Although, according to humanitarian organizations, taking into account the illegal North Korean migrant workers in China, at least ten times more. Beijing authorities regularly catch illegal immigrants and sent to North Korea. Although now do it temporarily stopped - perhaps in response to pressure from Seoul, which regularly asks not to extradite people to violence.

One dollar for newspapers

Another 20,000 North Koreans work in the Middle East. There are, for example, the vivid testimony of the shoe factory with the participation of North Korea in the Czech Republic: it in the early 2000s, North Korean women worked hard for 150 dollars a month. 75-80 dollars of this sum forcibly sent to the DPRK. We were charged $ 40 for a hostel. One dollar per month - for aircraft delivered from Pyongyang party newspapers. And on holidays with the workers took another $ 2 on the collective basket of flowers, which on behalf of the tray to the monument of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang. It is understood that "thousands of dollars" in such levies have not accumulated.

Pyongyang is now in desperate need of foreign currency - Auca UN Security Council sanctions, which after the nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches North Korea has banned trade in arms. Namely, such transactions gave North Korea a significant portion of dollars and euros. Pyongyang, of course, is trying to circumvent the sanctions regime, but revenues still falling. In the past year, it is estimated that North Korea's trade deficit amounted to 630 million dollars - a huge sum for a very poor country. In these circumstances, it is becoming increasingly important revenues from the "supply" of migrant workers abroad, which, according to experts, bring a few hundred million dollars a year.

In China, as reported, the number of laborers in the January-March jumped by 40% compared to the same quarter last year. There are a number of new joint projects in the Amur region, which will again bring in workers from the DPRK. However, do not expect us many thousands of North Korean invasion - Pyongyang, of course, really need the money, but the fruits of deserters in Russia, too unreliable with no hands.