North Korea, a country largely closed
off to the rest of the world, has
welcomed its first tourists at a new
holiday resort in an exclusive area on
the east coast. The Wan Kalma coastal
tourist zone opened on the 1st of July
and is where the country's leader Kim
Jong-un spent much of his youth. BBC
News Russian reporter Yarus Lava Kira
managed to speak to one of those
tourists who visited the highly
restricted site. She's been telling us
what they've been saying. Russian
tourists who have first visited it are
really excited. Uh they seem to have
enjoyed the holiday despite all numerous
restrictions um they have experienced
and some issues with the tourist self.
They were the lady I spoke to was in the
first group and it happens that happens
so that it coincided with a visit to the
resort by Russian foreign minister Serge
Lov and uh their arrival to Wang Kalma
was uh delayed by a day but then they
got there and they were really impressed
with as they described flawless beach um
and uh kind of host uh trying to
accommodate almost every whim they
So very high quality resort. Why is
North Korea opening this resort when it
is so restrictive on who it allows in?
Uh according to uh experts in North
Korean affairs, Andrea Lankov I've
spoken to. Uh the thing is that they
desperately want some money, some uh
actually valued currency like dollars,
euros, even rubles. Uh and obviously
they used to be quite popular among
Chinese tourists before the pandemic,
the COVID pandemic. Uh up to 200,000
people um came to North Korea as
tourists and now it just uh there's just
a fraction of it uh I mean Russian
tourists who are now coming to North
Korea and there are roughly three uh to
500 bookings per months. uh they still
cannot replenish obviously the previous
tourist floor. So uh Nosku desperately
needs some cash uh and the tour itself
to Manankama is paid partly in dollars.
>> Is it surprising giving as you say how
desperately the country needs money and
resources the quality of the offering
there um and also things like food. um
how are they managing to offer high
quality accommodation, food or all of
those things that go into making a
world-class resort?
>> Yeah. Uh there are various speculations
of uh uh what uh what was uh kind of um
where the region to build this resort uh
uh come from because uh North Korea used
to have several resorts including Rason
uh which is quite popular among u uh I
think it was rather popular among
British tourists because they went there
just this some of them went there this
winter. uh but now they want to lure
more uh kind of chi Chinese primarily
after Chinese stories in the first place
uh as Andre Langov believes uh but due
to some uh rough relations with China at
the moment uh only Russians are
permitted it's kind of uh by by allowing
them North Korea is trying to showc the
world that we have a powerful ally and
and so on but uh again uh and there are
spec ulations that either there was kind
of an Asian resort they wanted to kind
of reproduce or Benadorm which I believe
is quite popular among um um kind of
British tourists.