“Red tourism”: North Korea has prepared for a meeting of Russian skiers

The most closed country in the world decided to join the global tourism industry and started with the Russians, offering us their “ultra-modern ski slopes” in the winter, and a “Spanish-level family resort” in the summer. Against the backdrop of geopolitical and economic restrictions, domestic ski lovers were the first to appreciate North Korean hospitality: the first tour group will go to the “reddest” of all ski resorts in the world on February 9.

And we talked with those who had already been there and found out what we should be wary of in a new country for our travelers.

“A five-day tour with 4 days of full-fledged skiing from morning to evening will cost me only 66 thousand rubles,” Vadim from Vladivostok explains his choice, among the first fifty of the bravest Russian ski holiday enthusiasts who booked a tour to Masikryong, the North Korean winter resort. – I can do without the sea, but not without skiing, and in any other place, including Russian ski resorts, it will be many times more expensive for me. It’s impossible to get to Europe, where I skated before, at all. And to North Korea 66 thousand including flights, meals and all transfers. For ski “maniacs” like me, after that everything else is not important.

– What if there is equipment from the last century, the country does not communicate with the rest of the world!

“There’s only one ski resort there, but it’s equipped as it should be,” Vadim is sure. – I know this from skiers who can be trusted. There are no problems with the pistes there, but après-ski (leisure after skiing) auto) a real skier doesn’t care. There would be a sauna, dinner and a comfortable room. And Masikryon has all this.

– Aren’t you afraid? What if it’s dangerous there?

– Are you kidding me, or what?! I am a 37-year-old athletic man, with skis and poles in my hands, who brought $750 in rubles at the exchange rate to the North Korean tourism industry – who will offend me?!

49 other members of the tour group, which Vadim was a part of, reason about the same thing: for a Russian skier, that kind of money for a tour in the most expensive type of winter recreation is almost free. And for the North Korean tourism industry, which has never seen a mass foreign tourist, fifty pioneers for 750 American “rubles” is “a convincing victory at the first stage of introduction into the global tourism industry” – this is exactly how the first sales of tours to their territory are characterized by the North Korean media.

“Before the pandemic, our people went there, but only sporadically,” they answer the question of why North Koreans call tours to their ski resort “the first post-pandemic ones,” in a Vladivostok travel agency that sold the first fifty trips to the most closed country in the world. – Mostly, however, those who were there on other business, and foreign business travelers there are “treated” to alpine skiing.

According to tour operators, their current “new old tourist product” is also the result of an official visit: in December of last year, the team of the governor of the Primorsky Territory visited the country of Juche, went skiing, approved and agreed on a tour exchange.

“But no one will let the North Koreans come to us, but we will go to them, fortunately it’s nearby and inexpensive,” Vladivostok slope lovers rejoice. – There, in the most luxurious restaurant, dinner with wine is 5 bucks!

Judging by the lively discussions in the world travel press, Juche made a tempting offer not only to the Russians, but also to the whole world, in response to which the British and South Koreans immediately urged their citizens “not to believe in free cheese.”

“Whoever lived under the Soviet Union will understand what we need to be afraid of from our northern neighbors,” says In Mo Ahn, a resident of Seoul, South Korea. – I’m already over 80, at the age of 15 I fled from North Korea to South Korea at the risk of my life, it was the dream of every teenager. Already a businessman, I visited the USSR and was amazed by the service and even luxury. But I soon realized that this was only for foreign tourists, who were protected from Soviet reality. Our neighbors are doing the same thing. The ski slopes there are world class and the hotels are world class, don’t worry about that. But this is the only territory where world laws do not work. And if you suddenly do something wrong there, even not on purpose, a merciless system will work against you, and no one will help you. My advice is that before you go, carefully study the behavior near their “shrines”, which include a mausoleum, propaganda posters and other symbols. The simplest of rules is to never turn your back on shrines.