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Gliding down pristine, untouched mountain runs, Olga Shpalok said she was “getting 100% satisfaction”.
After a full day of skiing, the Russian designer from Vladivostok wound down with a visit to her hotel’s well-equipped spa and sauna.
“They said it was very hard to get into the country. But fate smiled upon us,” she said.
Shpalok was part of the first group of foreign tourists to visit North Korea since it shut down its borders at the start of the pandemic in 2020.
In early February, she travelled to the country with 100 other Russian tourists on a four-day skiing trip summed up by the Russian embassy as “Pyongyang opens its doors”.
More than 200 Russian tourists have visited North Korea so far this year in total across three trips in February and March. Their interviews and accounts give a rare insight into life in Kim Jong-un’s regime.
Closely watched by government “minders”, who restricted what they could see and where they could go, the Russian tourists described spending time in otherwise empty luxurious ski resorts. Some said they felt deep unease over the poverty and total control they witnessed.
Russia’s access to the pariah state is no coincidence. It comes at a time when the two countries have been moving closer at an unprecedented pace, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
North Korea has emerged as Russia’s largest supplier of weapons, shipping artillery shells, missiles and other equipment for Moscow’s continuing war. In exchange, Russia appears to be sending North Korea food, raw materials and parts used in weapons manufacturing, bypassing international sanctions imposed on the country.
The Russian tourist groups visiting North Korea illustrate another way Moscow can help Pyongyang. Before the pandemic, an estimated 5,000 westerners visited North Korea every year as part of pricey tours but since Covid-19 the borders have been sealed.