The number of Russian travelers entering North Korea reached a 12-year high of 6,469. Highest recent levels were 2012, with 8314 visitors.
Tourism was number one, with almost 2,000 visitors, followed by 1,500 for business. 700 were for private reasons.
https://www.nknews.org/2025/02/north-korean-arrivals-to-russia-mark-12-fold-yearly-increase-in-2024
DPRK delegations visited various Russian universities to discuss nuclear science, joint training and student exchanges
North Korean educators inked multiple deals with universities all across Russia during a recent delegation visit, eyeing student exchanges and engineering technology, including in nuclear science.
Delegations came from Kim Il Sung University (KISU) led by President Kim Sung Chan and Kim Chaek University of Technology (KCUT) led by President Pak Ji Min. KCUT officials visited Moscow Power Engineering Institute (MPEI), touring departments related to energy, electrical infrastructure and atomic energy, according to a social media post from the Russian university. The KISU delegation toured Moscow State University’s (MSU) Chemistry Department and Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) and its School of Medicine and Life Sciences, where the two sides discussed prospects for collaboration in medicine and scientific research. The department’s acting chief Sergey Karlov stressed that his university has “all the necessary resources to support joint research and educational programs for North Korean chemistry students,” according to a Telegram post from the Russian University.
Previously, representatives of Blagoveschensk State Pedagogical University traveled to North Korea for Russian language workshops for 110 DPRK instructors in Pyongyang.
The NK’s General Administration of Civil Aviation also attended an aviation exhibition in Russia.
The opacity of North Korean society—with outsiders having limited access to the country. North Korean citizens are often only seen as the victims—powerless and disconnected from the rest of the world. Because of this perception, decades of international efforts to engage and access the restrictive state have neglected to consider its people as a key partner in effecting change inside North Korea.
However, evidence over the past two decades has shown that the North Korean people have survived poverty and repression by becoming more independent from the regime, claiming greater agency over their own lives. Recognizing the people are an integral part of the solution to security, human rights and humanitarian challenges in North Korea, the international community needs to do more than just stand on the side of North Korean citizens; it needs to empower them so that that they can play a key role in holding the regime accountable.
Research report into how information is shared and disseminated in North Korean society. Types of information (news, videos, information), and the technology (USB, DVD, mobile, etc.) used to share that Technology, methodology and sources of information, and with whom information is likely to be shared, and where it is likely to be shared.
Key takeaways are as follows:
• North Korea’s information control strategy minimizes general social trust. Hence, strangers cannot be trusted, and supposedly neutral sites like outdoor spaces are dangerous for the acquisition of illicit content.
• Friends and family are trusted sources and conduits of information dissemination. The state has seemingly not been able to co-opt and control family and friendship bonds to any where near the same extent as it has fomented distrust between neighbors and strangers.
• Markets are less favored for foreign content acquisition than one’s own home or the homes of others, but the least favored place is general outdoor locations.
• Information dissemination strategies that rely on markets and commercial activities must reckon with the state’s relentless drive to control all activity outside the home.
• North Koreans are unlikely to share information with strangers, might share with a neighbor, and are likely to share with friends and family. If North Koreans acquire foreign information, they are highly likely to share it with friends and family (roughly 75% of the time).
• With whom North Koreans share information is influenced by the source.
• The North Korean state’s information control strategies appear to be adapted to the peculiarities of North Korean society. The North
Korean state remains dominant at every level of North Korean society.
North Korea has reopened tourism in the special economic zone of its northeastern border city Rason to foreign tourists, the website of a China-based travel agency showed Friday.
“North Korea has reopened tourism in Rason, it’s Special Economic Zone in the northeast of the country, according to our local DPRK partners,” the website of Young Pioneer Tours, a travel company specializing in North Korea tours, said. DPRK stands for the official name of North Korea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“The official reopening is technically effective” from Thursday, it said, adding that this is only a “breaking story” and “things could change rapidly in the coming days.”
https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2025/01/103_390602.html
NK Pro analysis reveals two facilities rebuilt and a third expanded, likely to improve security and handle more inmates.
North Korean authorities have demolished and completely rebuilt at least two prisons and expanded a third, new high-resolution satellite imagery reveals, providing evidence that the DPRK is increasing its capacity to detain citizens.
The reconstruction of detention facilities in Sinuiju, Sariwon and Chonnae since late 2023 is the latest in ongoing efforts by the DPRK regime to upgrade and expand its prisons and concentration camps.
Read more at NK News
“Rason, the oldest and largest of North Korea’s 29 economic development zones, has been central to the country’s push to attract foreign investment. It has one of North Korea’s first and biggest markets, was the site of the country’s first mobile network, and is the only place where North Korea legalised buying and selling homes in 2018, according to experts and North Korea’s government publications. Once a North Korean experiment in limited capitalism, the Rason Special Economic Zone appears to be the epicentre of the isolated country’s growing cooperation with Russia, experts say, including possible shipments of arms for the war in Ukraine.
In recent months, there have been clear signs that the area is poised for a comeback, with ships docking there for the first time since 2018, and satellite imagery suggesting a spike in trade from both the port and a rail line to Russia.
Although China – with its vastly larger economy and deeper historic ties with North Korea – might seem the obvious driver of a recovery in Rason, experts say the country’s deepening cooperation with Russia may make a more immediate impact.
“Now that North Korea and Russia are becoming very close against the backdrop of the Ukraine war, Russia might send more tourists to North Korea, which can reinvigorate tourism (in Rason),” said Jeong Eunlee, a North Korea economy expert at South Korea’s government-run Korea Institute for National Unification.
More at Reuters:
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/north-korean-special-economic-zone-poised-revival-new-russia-trade-2023-11-29/
Koryo tours as well as Young Pioneers are the two main tourism organizations offering tours to North Korea. Most trips originate from either Vladivostok, or from Beijing. The tours are generally focused on Rason and Yanji, and Pyongyang and offer visits of factories, sea cucumber farms, and banking opportunities, Hae’an Park, Pipha Island, and even boat rides to see seals. Pyongyang tours include Pyongyang Grand Theatre, Kim Il Sung Square, Mt. Myohyang , Korean War Museum, Pohyon Temple, USS Pueblo, Manpok valley, Kaeson Funfair.
One of the more interesting tours is the annual Pyongyang marathon, to be held this year on April 11, 2025. The marathon attracts people from all over the world, to participate in a 5K, 10K, half marathon, or full marathon through North Korea’s capital, and downtown sites.
https://www.koreakonsult.com/program_2025_Apr_11_15_eng.html
When Putin visited North Korea, he visited a small Russian Orthodox church, which had been built there, in 2007. Putin said a prayer in the church, lit a candle and made the sign of the cross, and spoke with the pastor. This was televised on TV, effectively declaring to North Korea, that Russia is a Christian nation.
Russia frequently uses the establishment of Russian Orthodox churches as a form of ‘soft power’ in nations around the globe. It’s a part of Russia expanding it’s culture and influence. After the establishment of the church in 2007, 4 North Koreans were sent to a Russian Orthodox seminary, to in order to conduct services at the church, back in North Korea.
People in North Korea have told the BBC food is so scarce their neighbours have starved to death.
Exclusive interviews gathered inside the world’s most isolated state suggest the situation is the worst it has been since the 1990s, experts say.
The government sealed its borders in 2020, cutting off vital supplies. It has also tightened control over people’s lives, our interviewees say.
Pyongyang told the BBC it has always prioritised its citizens’ interests.
The BBC has secretly interviewed three ordinary people in North Korea, with the help of the organisation Daily NK which operates a network of sources in the country. They told us that since the border closure, they are afraid they will either starve to death or be executed for flouting the rules. It is extremely rare to hear from people living in North Korea.
