A French travel blogger who was among the first group of Western tourists to visit North Korea in five years told Radio Free Asia that his tour guides knew that the country’s soldiers were fighting in Russia’s war against Ukraine -- something the government has kept largely a secret from the public.
Pierre-emile Biot, 30, said the Jan. 20-25 trip showcased North Korea’s culture, its close ties with Russia and its “surprisingly really good” locally-produced beer.
The visitors were only allowed to stay within the Rason Special Economic Zone in the country’s far northeastern corner, near the border with China and Russia.
Foreign tourism to North Korea had completely shut down during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It reopened last year, but only to visitors from Russia.
Biot had always wanted to visit the reclusive state and thought it was only a matter of time until it would open up further.
Last month, there were rumblings that the country would accept tourists from anywhere except South Korea and the United States on guided tours. Biot, who had been monitoring several travel agencies, was able to book a four-night five-day trip departing from China.
‘Quite welcoming’
To enter North Korea, Biot and his tour group of about a dozen, including other Europeans, traveled overland from Yanji in China’s Jilin province.
He said the entry process getting into North Korea was easy, although authorities conducted sanitary inspections due to concerns about COVID-19.
“It was quite welcoming, a lot more than I expected, and it went actually pretty smoothly,” Biot told RFA Korean from Hong Kong in a video call after the conclusion of his trip.
“It think they are still a bit scare of COVID,” he said. “They didn’t check like vaccines or anything, but they did check our temperature. They had us pay for a disinfection of our bags also.”
The tour was tightly controlled by two guides and two guides-in-training. None of the visitors had any freedom to roam around on their own, even outside their hotel at night.
One of the younger guides, a 20-year-old woman, told him she had never interacted with a foreigner before.
The itinerary included an elementary school, a deer farm, a brewery and a some cultural experiences, such as a Taekwon-Do performance and a kimchi-making event.
But there was a lot of uncertainty about the itinerary from day to day, Biot said. Each night, the guides would tell the visitors where they might go the next day, but the actual destination wasn’t announced until the following morning.
“He would give us ideas in the evenings, but he wouldn’t confirm anything before the morning when we were going,” Biot said.
All sites were within Rason, a special zone where North Korea has experimented with some aspects of capitalism, such as an electronic banking system and access to the internet -- although neither one worked very well, Biot said.
Inside the hotel, the wi-fi signal was weak, so the only reliable areas were those near the Chinese or Russian borders. But Biot was able to post updates about his trip on his social media accounts.
The tourists were issued debit cards upon their arrival, but very few businesses agreed to be paid that way, Biot said.
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"Basically you can buy a credit card that works but with no name on it. I just bought the card for the full 25 RMB ($3.43)," he said using the abbreviation for renminbi the Mandarin word for China’s currency, the yuan.
He said the shops accepted yuan, but most wanted cash.
“Apparently, I’m able to pay for the taxi with the card ... but we never took the taxi because we were with the group anyway,” said Biot.
Ties with Moscow emphasized
North Korea’s long and friendly relationship with Russia also was underscored during the tour, he said.
For years, Moscow provided aid to prop up the North Korean economy until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, which sent the North Korean economy crashing down.
The tour visited the Russia-Korea Friendship Pavilion on the border between the two countries. It was built in 1986, to commemorate a visit by then-leader Kim Il Sung to the Soviet Union.
Biot said that the tour guides tended to avoid questions about politics, but some did say that they knew that North Korean troops were sent to support Russia in its war with Ukraine.
Since November, about 12,000 North Korean soldiers have been sent to Russia -- although neither Moscow or Pyongyang have publicly confirmed this, and North Korean state media also has kept mum.
“Apparently yes, they know about it, but they don’t know to what extent,” he said. “So they know about the relations with Russia getting better and better.”
Good beer, ‘Great Leader’
When asked about the food the tour group was served, Biot praised the domestically produced beer.
“Actually the beer was surprisingly really good,” said Biot. “Well, at every single meal we would have, we had no table water, but we had table beer like local beer too. I think all of us had at least like five beers per day.”
Another part of the trip included a visit to statues of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s predecessors, his grandfather Kim Il Sung and his father Kim Jong Il.
The tourists were told to buy flowers to lay in front of the statues in a show of respect.
“We all had to bow, which was really important because we were the first tourist group” to visit in some time, Biot said.
Throughout the trip, Biot could sense the immense respect that the North Korean people had for their leaders, he said.
The guides often used the expression, “Our great leader made the decision ...” and they spoke often about Kim Jong Un’s achievements.
Translated by Leejin J. Chung and Claire S. Lee. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.