In the mausoleum of Comrade Kim Il Sung. Pyongyang

Today we will make the first big tour of Pyongyang, and we will start with the holy of holies - the mausoleum of Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il. The mausoleum is located in the Kumsusan Palace, where Kim Il Sung once worked and which, after the death of the leader in 1994, was turned into a huge pantheon of memory. After the death of Kim Jong Il in 2011, his body was also placed in the Kumsusan Palace.

Going to the mausoleum is a sacred ceremony in the life of any North Korean worker. Basically, they go there in organized groups - entire organizations, collective farms, military units, student classes. At the entrance to the pantheon, hundreds of groups await their turn in awe. Foreign tourists are allowed to enter the mausoleum on Thursdays and Sundays - guides also set up foreigners in a reverently solemn mood and warn of the need to dress as smartly as possible. Our group, however, for the most part ignored this warning - well, we don’t have anything smarter than jeans and a shirt on our trip (I must say that the DPRK really doesn’t like jeans, considering it “American clothing”). But nothing - let, of course. And here are many other foreigners whom we saw in the mausoleum (Australians, Western Europeans), playing their role to the fullest, dressed very smartly - puffy mourning dresses, tuxedos with a butterfly ...

You cannot take pictures inside the mausoleum and on all approaches to it - so I will try to simply describe what is happening inside. First, tourists wait in line in a small waiting pavilion for foreigners, then go to the common area, where they mix with North Korean groups. At the entrance to the mausoleum itself, you need to hand over phones and cameras, a very thorough inspection - you can only take medicine for the heart with you, if someone suddenly becomes ill with reverence in the front halls with the leaders. And then we ride on a horizontal escalator along a long, long corridor, the marble walls of which are hung with photographs of both leaders in all their greatness and heroism - photographs interspersed different years, from the young revolutionary era of Comrade Kim Il Sung to recent years the reign of his son Comrade Kim Jong Il. In one of the places of honor towards the end of the corridor, a photograph of Kim Jong Il was seen in Moscow at a meeting with the then very youthful Russian president, taken in 2001, it seems, the year. This pompous long, long corridor with huge portraits, along which the escalator rides for about 10 minutes, willy-nilly sets you in some kind of solemn mood. Even foreigners from another world are set up - what can we say about the trembling locals, for whom Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are gods.

From the inside, the Kumsusan Palace is divided into two halves - one is dedicated to Comrade Kim Il Sung, the other is dedicated to Comrade Kim Jong Il. Huge marble halls in gold, silver and jewels, pompous corridors. The luxury and pomp of all this is difficult to describe. The bodies of the leaders lie in two huge semi-dark marble halls, at the entrance to which you pass through another inspection line, where you are driven through the jets of air in order to blow off the last specks of dust from the ordinary people of this world before visiting the main sacred halls. Four people plus a guide come up directly to the bodies of the leaders - we go around the circle and bow. You need to bow to the floor when you are in front of the leader, as well as to the left and right - you do not need to bow while behind the head of the leader. On Thursday and Sunday, foreign groups are interspersed with ordinary Korean workers - it is interesting to observe the reaction of North Koreans to the bodies of leaders. All in the brightest ceremonial outfits - peasants, workers, a lot of military men in uniform. Almost all women cry and wipe their eyes with handkerchiefs, men also often cry - the tears of young thin village soldiers are especially striking. Tantrums happen to many people in mourning halls... People cry touchingly and sincerely - however, they are brought up in this from birth.

After the halls where the bodies of the leaders are buried, the groups pass through other halls of the palace and get acquainted with the awards - one hall is dedicated to the awards of Comrade Kim Il Sung, and the other to the awards of Comrade Kim Jong Il. They also show the personal belongings of the leaders, their cars, as well as two famous railway cars, in which Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il traveled around the world, respectively. Separately, it is worth noting the Hall of Tears - the most pompous hall, where the nation said goodbye to the leaders.

On the way back, we again drove for about 10 minutes along this long, long corridor with portraits - it so happened that several foreign groups were driving in a row, and towards the leaders, already sobbing and nervously fiddling with scarves, only Koreans - collective farmers were driving , workers, military ... Hundreds of people were rushing past us, going to a longed-for meeting with the leaders. It was a meeting of two worlds - we looked at them, and they looked at us. I was very struck by these minutes on the escalator. I broke a little here chronological order, since the day before we had already thoroughly traveled around the regions of the DPRK and got an idea about them - therefore, I will give here what I wrote in the travel notebook on leaving the mausoleum. “For them, it is Gods. And this is the ideology of the country. At the same time, there is poverty in the country, denunciations, people are nothing. Taking into account the fact that almost everyone serves in the army for at least 5-7 years, and the soldiers in the DPRK manually do the most difficult work, including almost 100% of national construction, we can say that this is a slave system, free labor. At the same time, the ideology presents that “the army helps the country, and we need even tougher discipline in the army and in the country in general in order to move towards a brighter future” ... And the country is on average at the level of the 1950s ... But what palaces of leaders! That's how to zombie society! After all, they, knowing no other, really love them, they, if necessary, are ready to kill for Kim Il Sung and are ready to die themselves. Of course, it's great - to love your homeland, to be a patriot of your country, you can also have a good or bad attitude towards this or that political figure. But the way it all happens here is beyond the understanding of modern man!”

On the square in front of the Kumsusan Palace you can take pictures - it is especially interesting to take pictures of people.

1. Women in full dress go to the mausoleum.

2. Sculptural composition at the left wing of the palace.

4. Group photography in front of the mausoleum.

5. Some are taking pictures, others are looking forward to their turn.

6. I also took a photo for memory.

7. Pioneer bow to the leaders.

8. Peasants in ceremonial clothes are waiting in line at the entrance to the mausoleum.

9. Almost 100% of the male population of the DPRK is subject to military conscription for 5-7 years. At the same time, servicemen perform not only military, but also general civilian work - they build everywhere, plow oxen in the fields, work on collective farms and state farms. Women serve for one year and on a voluntary basis - naturally, there are many volunteers.

10. Front facade of the Kumsusan Palace.

11. Next stop - a memorial to the heroes of the struggle for liberation from Japan. Heavy rain…

14. The graves of the fallen stand on the side of the mountain in a checkerboard pattern - so that everyone resting here can see the panorama of Pyongyang from the top of Mount Taesong.

15. The central place of the memorial is occupied by the revolutionary Kim Jong Suk, praised in the DPRK, the first wife of Kim Il Sung, the mother of Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Suk died in 1949 at the age of 31 in her second childbirth.

16. After visiting the memorial, we will head to the suburbs of Pyongyang, the village of Mangyongde, where Comrade Kim Il Sung was born and where his grandparents lived for a long time until the post-war years. This is one of the most sacred places in North Korea.

19. A tragicomic story happened to this crumpled pot during smelting - not realizing all its holiness, one of our tourists tapped on it with his finger. And our guide Kim did not have time to warn that it is strictly forbidden to touch anything here. One of the employees of the memorial noticed this and called someone. A minute later, our Kim's phone rang - the guide was called somewhere for study. We walked for about forty minutes in the park, accompanied by a driver and a second guide, a young guy who did not speak Russian. When Kim became completely anxious, she finally appeared - upset and tearful. When asked what would happen to her now, she smiled sadly and quietly said - “What's the difference?” ... She felt so sorry at that moment ...

20. While our guide Kim was at work, we took a short walk in the park surrounding Mangyongdae. This mosaic panel depicts the young comrade Kim Il Sung leaving native home and leaving the country to fight the Japanese militarists who occupied Korea. And his grandparents see him off in his native Mangyonde.

21. The next item on the program is a monument to Soviet soldiers who took part in the liberation of Korea from Japan at the very end of World War II.

23. Behind the memorial to our soldiers, a huge park begins, stretching along the hills along the river for several kilometers. In one of the cozy green corners, a rare monument of antiquity was discovered - in Pyongyang there are few historical monuments since the city was badly damaged during the Korean War of 1950-1953.

24. A beautiful view of the river opens up from the hill - how familiar these wide avenues and panel buildings of high-rise buildings seem to be. But how surprisingly few cars!

25. The newest bridge across the Taedong River is the last of the five bridges envisaged by the post-war master plan for the development of Pyongyang. It was built in the 1990s.

26. Not far from the cable-stayed bridge is the largest in the DPRK, the 150,000th May Day Stadium, which hosts the main sport competitions and the famous Arirang festival is held.

27. A couple of hours ago, I left the mausoleum slightly on the negative, which intensified after some kind of pot of our unfortunate escort staged a scolding in higher instances. But it is worth taking a walk in the park, looking at people - and the mood changes. Children play in a cozy park ...

28. A middle-aged intellectual, secluded on a Sunday afternoon in the shade, studies the works of Kim Il Sung ...

29. Does it remind you of anything? :)

30. Today is Sunday - and the city park is full of vacationers. People play volleyball, just sit on the grass...

31. And the hottest Sunday afternoon was on the open dance floor - both local youth and older Korean workers came off. How daringly they made their bizarre movements!

33. This little man danced the best.

34. We also joined the dancers for 10 minutes - and we were gladly accepted. This is what an alien guest looks like at a disco in North Korea! :)

35. After walking through the park, we will return to the center of Pyongyang. From the observation deck of the Juche Idea Monument (remember, the one that glows at night and which I shot from the hotel window) offers wonderful views of Pyongyang. Let's enjoy the panorama! So, the socialist city as it is! :)

37. Much is already familiar - for example, the Central Library named after Comrade Kim Il Sung.

39. Cable-stayed bridge and stadium.

41. Incredible impressions - quite our Soviet landscapes. Tall houses, wide streets and avenues. But how few people are on the streets. And almost no cars! As if, thanks to a time machine, we were transported 30-40 years ago!

42. Completing the construction of a new superhotel for foreign tourists and high-ranking guests.

43. "Ostankino" tower.

44. The most comfortable five-star hotel in Pyongyang - of course, for foreigners.

45. And this is our hotel "Yangakdo" - four stars. I look now - well, it reminds me of the skyscraper of the Moscow design institute where I work! :))))

46. ​​At the foot of the monument to the ideas of Juche, sculptural compositions of working people are installed.

48. In the 36th photo, you may have noticed an interesting monument. This is the Monument of the Workers' Party of Korea. The dominant of the sculptural composition is the sickle, hammer and brush. With the hammer and sickle, everything is more or less clear, and the brush in North Korea symbolizes the intelligentsia.

50. A panel is installed inside the composition, in the central part of which the “progressive socialist world masses” are shown who are fighting against the “bourgeois puppet government of South Korea” and are moving the “occupied southern territories torn apart by the class struggle” towards socialism and the inevitable unification with the DPRK.

51. This is the South Korean populace.

52. This is the progressive intelligentsia of South Korea.

53. This is apparently an episode of the ongoing armed struggle.

54. Grey-haired veteran and young pioneer.

55. Sickle, hammer and brush - collective farmer, worker and intellectual.

56. In conclusion of today's post, I want to give some more scattered photographs of Pyongyang taken while moving around the city. Facades, episodes, artifacts. Let's start with the Pyongyang railway station. By the way, Moscow and Pyongyang are still connected by rail (as I understand it, several trailer cars to the Beijing train). But Russian tourists cannot ride from Moscow to the DPRK by rail - these cars are intended only for residents of North Korea who work for us.

57. A typical urban panel - there are a lot of them in North Korea.

58. Czech tram - and ordinary people. There are very good people in the DPRK - simple, sincere, kind, friendly, cordial, hospitable. Later, I will dedicate a separate post to the people of North Korea, which I grabbed on the streets.

59. A pioneer tie, taken off after school, flutters in the May breeze.

60. Another Czech tram. However, the trams here are all so familiar to our eyes. :)

61. "Southwest"? "Vernadsky avenue"? "Strogino?" Or is it Pyongyang? :))))

62. But this is really a rare trolleybus!

63. Black "Volga" against the background of the Museum of the Patriotic Liberation War. There are a lot of our auto industry in the DPRK - Volga, military and civilian UAZs, sevens, MAZs, a few years ago the DPRK bought a large batch of Gazelles and Prior from Russia. But they, unlike the Soviet automobile industry, are dissatisfied.

64. Another photo of the "sleeping" area.

65. In the previous photo, an agitator car is visible. Here it is larger - such cars constantly drive around the cities and towns of North Korea, slogans, speeches and appeals, or just revolutionary music or marches, sound from the mouthpieces from morning to evening. Agitation machines are designed to cheer up the working people and inspire them to even more diligent work for the benefit of a brighter future.

66. And again the quarters of a socialist city.

67. Simple Soviet "Maz" ...

68. ... And a tram from fraternal Czechoslovakia.

69. Final photos - Arc de Triomphe in honor of the victory over Japan.

70. And this stadium reminded me a lot of our Moscow Dynamo stadium. Years of commercials in the forties, when he was still brand new with a needle.

North Korea leaves ambiguous, very mixed feelings. And they accompany you constantly while you are here. I will return to walking around Pyongyang, and next time we will talk about a trip to the north of the country, to the Myohang Mountains, where we will see several ancient monasteries, visit the Museum of Gifts to Comrade Kim Il Sung, visit the Renmun Cave with stalactites, stalagmites and a group of military men in one of the dungeons - and also just look at the informal life of the DPRK outside the capital

Exactly 90 years ago, the Lenin Mausoleum was opened in Moscow. Today we will talk about it and other mausoleums of the leaders of the proletariat, where tourists have access.

Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow

The Mausoleum of Vladimir Ilyich, despite the endless strife over whether in the 21st century in a European state on the main square of the capital near the main architectural monument of the country there can be the body of a deceased person, which thousands of tourists come to see every day, is one of the most visited attractions in Moscow. Moreover, the last refuge of Lenin remains the most visited mausoleum in the world and is one of the main cliché symbols. Soviet Union and Russia along with balalaikas, vodka and bears. The mausoleum is especially popular with tourists from countries with a communist regime. So, here you can often see whole crowds of Chinese students who want to bow to the world inspirer of communism.

But you can’t just take it and get into the mausoleum: it is open only from Tuesday to Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm, and before entering you will find a huge queue and instructions on what to do and how to behave in the tomb. Step to the left, step to the right - and you are already a violator. At the same time, it is not clear why such severity is needed (they say that Ilyich’s sarcophagus can withstand even a direct hit from a grenade launcher, and about a dozen people have already attempted unsuccessfully on it), except perhaps to create an atmosphere of the triumph of communism.

Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang

North Korea, a country where the personality cult of the leaders of the ruling party is elevated to the absolute and any public mockery of the leader is fraught with execution, could not do without a whole network of mausoleums throughout the country. There are more mausoleums in North Korea than there are McDonald's in Moscow, but the most important, majestic and revered was erected in Pyongyang for the greatest leader Kim Il Sung. For foreigners, the golden gates of the mausoleum are open only on Thursdays and Sundays - on other days only citizens of North Korea can bow to the shrine.

All the tourists who have been inside the main North Korean tomb say that the most difficult thing in the mausoleum of Kim Il Sung is not to laugh, as the tone of the guide is so enthusiastic and unwaveringly patriotic that a person who does not firmly believe in Juche ideas can have a tantrum. Which people with machine guns standing around the perimeter of all premises can try to immediately stop. Before you look at the mummy of the leader, you will have to stand in a huge queue, go through several disinfection procedures and inspections. X-rays, metal detector frames - everything is guarding the eternally young Kim Il Sung.

Mausoleum of Mao Zedong in Beijing

Nor could the legendary Mao Zedong, the Great Pilot Chinese people do without your own mausoleum. The tomb was erected in 1972 in the heart of Beijing. The last refuge for the leader of billions was built exclusively by volunteers who wanted to pay tribute to Mao in this way. "Chairman Mao Memorial House" is surrounded by sculptural compositions, which tell about the accomplishments of the leader, his merits and political successes. The mausoleum consists of several halls with tapestries and monuments to the red supreme ruler.

And although Mao himself wished to be cremated, he was placed in a crystal coffin in the center of a huge granite hall. Anyone can see the body, and for free. True, you will have to defend a huge queue, go through several inspections and go through metal detectors. And you can’t stop near the coffin, you need to move forward all the time. Therefore, the entire journey through the tomb takes only a few minutes. You can visit Mao from Tuesday to Sunday. From Tuesday to Thursday, the mausoleum is open from 14:00 to 16:00, and from Friday to Sunday, the leader “receives” from 8:00 to 11:00.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in Hanoi

The mausoleum of the first president of North Vietnam, the poet and philosopher Ho Chi Minh, was equipped with the help of Soviet masters, who organized everything in the best possible way, like the main Soviet mummy, Vladimir Ilyich. Our experts helped to embalm the leader, designed the mausoleum, helped Vietnamese colleagues to comprehend the difficult art of caring for the dead body of a great man. The Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in the very center of Hanoi even outwardly turned out to be similar to Lenin's, only much larger and more majestic.

As in the case of Mao Zedong, no one began to burn Ho Chi Minh who wanted to be cremated - he deserved more. The body of the leader canonically lies down in a glass coffin; everyone is allowed to look at it from 9 am to 12 pm. As in all mausoleums, before visiting you will be thoroughly searched, enlightened with all possible rays, and only after endless checks will they be allowed to look at the exhibit. They don't take any money and they don't allow taking pictures either.

It is not known for certain whose experience inspired the authoritarians of the past century to mummify the deceased leaders and heroes. Either the pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, who wished to appear comme il faut before God's court, or the Papuans of the western part of New Guinea, who withered their dead ancestors for a long memory and as a reserve food supply. Most likely, the communists and other -ists simply did not want to give the new national god to be eaten by bacteria and used the successes of chemistry and biology in matters of conservation of corpses. Indeed, back in 1881, the body of the great physician Nikolai Pirogov was successfully mummified on the outskirts of Vinnitsa, and in the second decade of the 20th century it “squeaked” both in Europe and beyond the Ocean.

As long as the dictator is alive, great power is concentrated in his hands. In order to fully inherit it, the successors of the deceased gods created three-dimensional icons from their corpses, quite miraculous. Remember the Soviet cry: "Lenin lived, Lenin is alive, Lenin will live!" With Vladimir Ilyich, we will begin our excursion into the history of the pharaohs of the past century.

1. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

This is now a visit to the Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square is considered a symptom of latent necrophilia. Thirty years ago, queues lined up at the tomb of a Russian undertaker longer than for an imported cervelat.

Lenin asked to be buried after his death as a normal person, but he asked unconvincingly. Therefore, the leadership of the Land of Soviets organized the reception of fake telegrams from workers and peasants with a request to save the body of the leader from decay. From 1924 to this day, Volodya, without brains and entrails, rests under bulletproof glass, having gone on a business trip to Tyumen only for the period of the war of 1941-45. Even today, he is periodically undressed, washed, powdered and dressed in a clean suit. And in 1998, two Moscow slovenly artists created an unusual cake in the form of the mummy of Ilyich, which was devoured by invited journalists and art critics at the opening of the exhibition. To mournful music.

2. Grigory Kotovsky

An optional character in jokes about Vasily Ivanovich and Petka, famous for his brilliant bald head and iron character, Kotovsky was the first bandit among the heroes civil war and the first hero among the bandits of New Russia. Grigory Ivanych was killed in 1925 in Chabanka, near Odessa.

A year and a half passed after the death of Lenin, so the legendary red commander was also immortalized by mummification and placed on public display in the mausoleum in the city of Birzula, renamed Kotovsk. In 1941, drunken Romanian soldiers abused the body of a Sovietization hero. Until the end of the occupation, his remains were hidden in the basement by local residents, having previously been doused with alcohol. In 1965, "mausoleum No. 3" was restored in the form of a stele over the crypt, now it has a sad look and is littered with seed husks and beer containers in the evenings. The entrance to the tomb is closed with a rusty lock, but if you find a cloak in the local museum, you can enter and look into the eye sockets of the legend of the Bessarabian steppes through the window in the coffin lid.

3. Georgi Dimitrov

The Bulgarian "Stalin" Georgi Dimitrov died in 1949 in a sanatorium near Moscow somehow ugly. No one noticed a clear deterioration in his health, and an autopsy revealed cirrhosis of the liver and heart failure. There is a version that the leader of the Bulgarian communists was poisoned with mercury, but it is not recognized as official. After his death, Dimitrov's body was embalmed, returned to his homeland and paraded in a mausoleum in the center of Sofia, which was built in just six days (!) - so strong was the "people's love" for the leader of the Comintern.

After the fall of the Belinsky wall, the glass coffin with the body of Dimitrov was secretly buried, so that no one could see, and in 1999 the Bulgarians celebrated the 50th anniversary of the construction of the mausoleum, barbarously destroying it ... from the fifth time. Now, on the site of the tomb, there is an ordinary concrete platform, on which you can ride a skateboard or a bicycle. Or even Bulgarian buffalo.

4. Eva Peron

The beautiful actress, the wife of the Pharaoh of Argentina Juan Peron, during her lifetime aroused admiration and envy among men and women all over the globe. Having married the dictator, she fell in love not so much with him as with the authorities and, according to historians, even intended to move her husband from the throne, changing the ordinary theater to the geopolitical theater and becoming the people's "symbol of social justice", and then "in a skirt".

In 1952, at the age of 33, Evita died of uterine cancer. Her body was embalmed by the best mummifier that the Argentine authorities could find, nicknamed "the master of the art of death." For two years, the sarcophagus with the charming corpse of Signora Peron stood in Juan's house. “As if sleeping,” said everyone who saw.

In 1955, Peron was overthrown, and the mummy of the legendary woman was taken to Milan and buried there under an assumed name. Peron, who soon returned to power, remarried, and only in 1974 did Evita's body return to his homeland and rest in the family crypt. Pilgrims - darkness! Yes, only the beauty of the past can not be seen.

5. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin

There was such an anecdote. Say, the Bolsheviks put Stalin's corpse in Lenin's mausoleum, and in the morning the coffin with the mustachioed one is in the backyard of the tomb. And so several times in a row, despite the reinforced guard. We decided to check what kind of miracle is happening. And now midnight comes in Moscow, an angry Ilyich comes out of the mausoleum to the sound of chimes and with the words “How long can you repeat that there is no hostel here !?”, Throws the “father of peoples” into the fresh air.

The body of a smoker and drunkard, who was allegedly poisoned by wretched doctors, was embalmed and brought into a ziggurat near the walls of the Kremlin in March 1953.

And on Halloween, October 30, 1961, after German Titov flew into space and told Khrushchev that God did not mind, Stalin, who intended to resurrect in the form of a zombie, decided to be buried in Moscow. Thought - on Novodevichy cemetery, but took pity, and issued a bloody Kobe a warrant for a hole near the Kremlin wall. Against the background of Roza Zemlyachka and Marshal Tolbukhin. Since then, Lenin has been alone.

According to the Listvez Internet portal, the top ten mummified celebrities and famous mummies (oh, Isis, when will I learn to write without tautologies!) are our old acquaintance, Saint Bernadette (I hope you still remember,), the frozen virgin Juanita from Peru, baby Rosalia Lombardo, Tolund the man from prehistoric Denmark, and the mysterious Lady Dai discovered in China.

We will certainly honor their memory at an opportunity, but for now we will return to our sheep, that is, tyrants. At the same time, let's try to mentally predict who will be the next "sleeping beauty" in the new century. Is it the one you think of, dear reader?

What a pity that the author, whose awareness of the role of the leaders of countries in the life of the masses coincided with the Five Years of a magnificent funeral, did not preserve a drawing of a monumental structure, made with a fountain pen in a school notebook, signed “Andropov’s Pyramid” ...

6. Klement Gottwald

Both laughter and sin, but it is officially believed that the leader of post-war Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, caught a deadly cold at the funeral of Comrade Stalin. The fact that the chairman of the HRC was a syphilitic and alcoholic is not taken into account. The people decided that Stalin decided to take with him to Hell the same Marxist reformer as he was. So that together it would be nice to remember the repressions and famines.

Of course, Gottwald was embalmed. But either the preservative formula was incorrectly calculated, or the damned saboteurs put their hands on it, but after lying a bit in the ugly, spoiling the view of beautiful Prague, the mausoleum, Czech No. 1 itself began to deteriorate.

Every year and a half, Clement had to be embalmed anew, replacing decayed fragments with decorative inserts. In 1960, when, despite the efforts of the court physicians, Gottwald completely turned black, the mausoleum was closed "for re-registration", and two years later the gloomy-radiant corpse was cremated. Well, peace be upon him and pioneer salute.

7. Ho Chi Minh

The founder of Soviet power in Vietnam, the kind grandfather Ho Chi Minh naively bequeathed that he be cremated after his death. But no matter how! The best masters Oriental medicine, working hand in hand with Soviet specialists in 1969, allegedly created a miracle - the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh to this day looks like he did not die, but lay down to sleep for an hour or two.

Skeptics say that the sarcophagus contains not the body of the leader, but a doll. And that in the basement under the mausoleum of grandfather Ho is the worst underground prison in Vietnam. To spit in the eyes of skeptics and make up own opinion, you need to fly to Hanoi, pay 2 dollars for a ticket and visit the majestic mausoleum. And then tell us, okay?

8. Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, the Great Pilot of the People's Republic of China, did not bathe or brush his teeth during his lifetime. There was such a sin, with all the merits. Maybe it happened after shaking hands with Comrade Stalin?

Moreover, in 1956, Mao signed a law that all cultural leaders of China must be burned after death. 20 years passed, and Zedong died as a result of two heart attacks at the age of 83. And no one dared to burn it. Embalmed - and in a crystal coffin, for popular worship. The ears, however, protruded and the stomach was swollen. Soviet specialists could not help, because in the 1970s the USSR and China did not talk to each other, composed mutually offensive poems and painted caricatures.

It is believed that the mausoleum of Mao Zedong must withstand any cataclysms - earthquakes, default and even a nuclear missile attack. For 35 years, the tomb of the Chinese pharaoh was visited by about 180 million people.

9. Enver Hoxha

Unlike Khoja Nasreddin, Enver Khoja did not ride a donkey and did not differ in special wisdom. But he transplanted all of Albania onto donkeys, banning private vehicles during the years of his authoritarian rule. A consistent Stalinist, Hoxha fought against "enemies of the people" and named after himself. And the cult of Stalin himself in Albania, which managed to quarrel with the whole world, even with China, persisted until the end of the 1980s.

With the coming to power of the charming terminator Gorbachev in the USSR, Comrade Hodja became sad, suffered a heart attack and died in November 1985. Mourning lasted 9 days. "But father" was embalmed and placed not even in a mausoleum, but in a real Pyramid. And in 1991, they were reburied in the ground in a regular cemetery. The Hoxha Pyramid now serves as a venue for conferences, concerts and exhibitions.

10. Kim Il Sung

There has not been, is not, and will not be on Earth greater love than that experienced by the people of the DPRK for Comrade Kim Il Sung, who built the most isolated state in the world and died of a heart attack in search of a place for negotiations on the unification of the two Koreas in 1994. After his death, he was declared the "eternal president" of Korea, embalmed and relocated to the huge Geumsusan Memorial Palace, covering an area of ​​350 hectares. A billion dollars was once spent to renovate the building. This is in a country where everything is on the cards.

To get communion to "eternity", you need eat more than one dog overcome many Kafkaesque stairs and corridors. The open sarcophagus with the body of Kim Il Sung is forbidden to photograph on pain of death. Eyewitnesses say that the head of the leader ... shrank. Official guided tours "under escort" are held on Thursdays and Sundays. A foreigner has to agree on admission in advance, quite in advance. Usually they refuse.

We are publishing excerpts from Sergei Yan's book "The Country of Father's Dreams", dedicated to the fate of the Koreans who ended up on Sakhalin after the Second World War. Only in the 1990s did Korean families have the opportunity to go to their ancestral homeland - to South and North Korea, and the separated families to see each other and reunite.

MAUSOLEUM

An extraordinary item on our program, a reward to our group for exemplary behavior from the escorts, is a visit to the mausoleum of Comrade Kim Il Sung, the leader of the Korean Revolution. For us, as the guide explained, it is a great honor and trust. I don't know if we can justify it.

The square is the size of a decent city block and hosts a whole complex of buildings, including the former presidential palace. The high beautiful gates are guarded by soldiers in full dress Soviet uniforms. Around - squares and fountains, and along the perimeter - a wide channel with water. It got dark sharply, and a real tropical downpour broke out - nothing could be seen five steps away. Despite the pouring rain, the queue of those wishing to see the leader does not decrease.

The attendance by the people of revolutionary monuments, museums and cemeteries is simply amazing. The entire history of the country is reduced to a dark pre-revolutionary past and a bright present: socialism built under the wise leadership of the party. The monuments and monuments erected in honor of the revolution have been elevated to the rank of national shrines. Everything, as it was with us, only taking into account the peculiarities of eastern obedience and resignation to fate. As guests, we were taken to the covered gallery and placed at the front of the line.

Following a group of students, we go down the escalator somewhere down. On the opposite escalator from the mausoleum rise the military. In a small room, everyone is arranged in a column of two people, and a moving sidewalk - a horizontal escalator - takes us along a long, brightly lit tunnel. On the opposite lane, separated from us by a wide parapet, workers and high school students are driving. Some women have tears in their eyes. Through the turn another escalator. In the next corridor, we are passed through a metal detector one by one. Then, on a moving walkway, small brushes wash visitors' soles. And in a small unit that looked like a container from the outside, dust was blown off us with a jet of air and passed through some kind of radiation. Now let's go upstairs. Marble, gold, crystal. The radiance is so blinding. Finally, after half an hour of wandering in the dungeon, we stop in front of the stone doors with gilding inside the former presidential palace, now a mausoleum. We enter. In the center of a huge hall on a dais stands a transparent sarcophagus with the body of the leader. Four sentries at the corners of the elevation are more like statues. Strange as it may seem, the familiar, slightly slowed-down melody of the song “Beyond the island to the core ...”, decorated with elements of oriental music, sounds.

In groups of five we approach the sarcophagus. At the sign of the escort, we stop at the feet, bow, go to the left, look, bow again and go to the other side. Last bow. From the hall we leave through other doors. Whether there was anything else besides the sarcophagus, I don't remember. It is said that the body of Comrade Kim Il Sung was embalmed by Russian scientists. And here we are “ahead of the rest”. Indeed, Kim Il Sung in the sarcophagus looks "more alive" than the sentries standing around him.

Hundreds of orders, medals and other awards, received by the great leader and teacher during his long revolutionary life from more than a hundred countries, sparkle in glass cases in the adjacent hall. Insignia and orders of Bulgaria, Cuba, Germany, Poland - all countries of the socialist camp without exception. Awards from Asia, Africa, America. They can be studied political geography peace. His services to the people and the government of the USSR were awarded with three Orders of Lenin, two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor and dozens of medals. Are our awards not our recognition of the merits of the leader of the Korean Communists?

Then we were taken to kindergarten. An exhibition of paintings, a demonstrative lesson on the knowledge of the biography of the leader, a small concert young talents̆. Together with them we danced round dances and even took part in small competitions. I remember for a long time the shining, trusting eyes and defenseless hands of the children...

The expressway, along which our bus runs alone, was built with all modern requirements in mind. Junctions at different levels, a dividing strip with reflective film on picket posts, overpasses, tunnels, beautiful bridges. The speedometer needle swings at the mark of one hundred kilometers per hour. Outside the window, yellow harvested rice fields, gardens, multi-colored hills and gray walls of monolithic rocks rush by. A modern freeway with no cars...

Harvest failure in North Korea for the third year. In the past two years it has rained continuously, and all the crops have been destroyed by a flood. Drought this year. Canals and rivers have become shallow. During the summer it rained only twice. Humanitarian aid coming from China, Japan and Thailand can only prevent mass starvation in the country. We were warned about this in advance and apologized for the possibly meager and unusual diet. Contrary to expectations, there was plenty of food, however, the quality of rice left much to be desired. If we, tourists, were fed with such rice, you can imagine what the population eats. However, we do not need to talk at length about the collective-farm, cooperative, socialist difficulties. We ourselves are from there.

In November 1953, our family was evicted from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and sent to a collective farm. It was snowing. In addition to the clothes that we were wearing, they allowed us to take with us two small bundles of blankets and dishes, a bundle of rice and two small plywood suitcases. Everything that the parents did not have time to distribute to the neighbors was left in an empty house. When a small tractor with a cart drove up, one for five families, we, together with a policeman, were already on the street. They quickly threw things in, then, pushing the people already sitting on the knots, they settled on the cart themselves. Thus began a long odyssey for our family. A blizzard raged on the pass, it began to get dark. The men, pointing the way, ran in twos ahead of the tractor. I, wrapped in all kinds of shawls, followed the shiny steel caterpillar with interest through a small slit, and imperceptibly fell asleep. I woke up already on wooden bunks covered with a layer of straw.

How we did not starve to death that winter, only God and my parents know. My mother's dresses and cuts, carefully preserved in a cherished suitcase since the war, my father exchanged with officers from the military unit for several sacks of potatoes and a barrel of salted pink salmon. Secretly, at night, overcoming a distance of six kilometers, he carried the products on himself and hid them under the floor. Almost all winter we ate frozen potatoes, barley porridge and salted fish. But spring was still not enough.

At the end of December, a dozen and a half families of special settlers from the mainland - Ukrainians and Russians - were brought to our collective farm on sledges. We were afraid of them and put locks on the doors. A week later, a Russian neighbor unexpectedly came to us and asked my mother not to throw away the potato peels. We thought that they had brought a piglet and, surprised at their thriftiness, we told our father everything. The parents talked for a long time among themselves, and in the morning the father took half a bag of potatoes to the neighbors. He took another half a bag to the Ukrainians. A few days later, a terrible bearded grandfather in huge boots brought us a loaf of black homemade bread. I do not remember that before this incident we ate bread. This is how we survived together. Closer to spring, the potatoes were not peeled, they were boiled in their uniforms. Finally the snow came down. Wild plants, fish, a road to a neighboring village appeared. Life went on...

Already at dusk, having passed the city of Hengsan, we drive up to the hotel near a small suburban village with houses in a purely eastern architectural style. Our women, who were pretty exhausted by the lack of hot water in the hotel rooms of the capital, were very pleased with cozy warm rooms.

In the evening, the guide invited everyone to a disco. A large semi-dark room with a brightly lit bar. There are low tables with chairs around the perimeter, a music center on the podium. In the middle of the hall, to the accompaniment of the accordion, a group of boys and girls sing and dance, or rather, dance in round dances.

Slightly warmed up with local beer, we asked the bartender to turn on the music center. There were recordings of Russian songs, and even lambada. After the waltz, the visitors quietly began to leave the disco, and after the lambada performed by us, in the hall, apart from us, there were only a few of the most persistent resting young leaders of the production, who were awarded weekend vouchers.

MOUNTAIN MOYANSAN

The sixth day in Korea began with a tour of the exposition of gifts received by the great leader Kim Jong Il and his father, the great leader Kim Il Sung. On the bank of a small river, at the foot of picturesque mountains, there are two huge buildings, separated by green lawns. Massive doors made of monolithic stone slabs open with a light touch of the hand. Magnificent interior finishes, luxurious crystal chandeliers. Putting on special covers made of thick fabric for shoes, we cautiously slide along the sparkling white marble floor. The exposition of gifts contains the most works of painting, sculpture and applied arts. Dozens of samovars sparkling with pot-bellied sides. Here and large two-bucket and very small, just one cup of water. The tusks of walruses, elephants and even a mammoth, decorated with the finest carvings, amaze the imagination. A lot of products made of mahogany and ebony, bog oak, gold, glass, crystal and coral. The richest palette of shades and nuances in products skilled craftsmen you can admire for hours. Among the gifts are three-meter porcelain vases painted by Indian and Chinese masters, chasing from Pakistan, blue-and-white dishes from Gzhel, Japanese screens made of rice paper, netsuke, a wooden figurine of a giraffe from South Africa.

Dmitry Yazov, the last Minister of Defense of the USSR, presented the son of the great leader with a golden saber with a commemorative modest inscription "To the leader of the world proletariat from D. Yazov", the Russian society "Memory" - a huge, human-height, two-handed sword, the Communist Party faction of the State Duma of Russia presented a saber in gilded scabbard with gems. I was struck by the predilection of our politicians for edged weapons. In the guest book, the leader of the Russian communists wrote: "Your society has been built, the likeness of which we have been striving and striving for all the years." Someone from the leadership of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation presented the great leader Kim Jong Il with a small bronze bust of Lenin. Does anyone else make these busts, or is it from old party stocks?

In one of the halls, as if alive, stands Kim Il Sung himself in full size. Black suit, white shirt, staring through large horn-rimmed glasses. Every hair on the hand is like a real one. This is a gift from the Chinese people on the anniversary of the Great Leader's death. Local women leave the hall in tears, we confine ourselves to a general bow.

In a cozy corner of the forest, on the bank of a stream, the bed of which is strewn with huge boulders, we will have lunch. Coals smolder in small braziers, gray smoke curls. Waitresses in red tracksuits spread long white tablecloths on the ground, arranging glasses and plates of snacks. Quietly murmuring water, bending around the stones, the sun shines brightly. From the spreading cedars in the clearing there are long spotty shadows. Upstream, the smoke of a fire and a few people by a black car. And we guess who they are... Raise a toast to friendship, to the prosperity of countries. On braziers, coming from an appetizing smell, meat is cooked. We sing permitted Korean songs, then we switch to Russian. To the accompaniment of an impromptu noise orchestra of pebble-filled beer bottles and pot lids, our grandmothers and grandfathers in their seventies dance enthusiastically.

Half an hour drive along a good road - and we are at the foot of Mount Moyangsan, which we have to conquer. One thousand nine hundred meters above sea level, and only one and a half kilometers from the foot. We rise along the bed of a crystal clear river, and with every meter, unimaginably beautiful views open up to our eyes. Yellow-red-green-orange leaves of trees and bushes shimmer. Transparent emerald water flows over the blue rocks. Breaking off the rocks, it blooms at the foot of the waterfalls with a seven-color rainbow. There are nine of them on our way. The last ninety-meter waterfall is located at the very top of the mountain. Steps were carved into the rock on the steep slopes, and metal stairs with railings were installed at the steepest places. We climb with all our might. We cross a mountain river several times on swinging cable bridges, crawl on all fours under huge boulders hanging over the path. Gasping with inexpressible delight and lack of air in the lungs, we are gradually approaching the top.

Not everyone can take this walk. Only twenty people get to the penultimate pavilion. And only twelve rise to the very top to the beginning of the ninth waterfall. The last to arrive is the seventy-six-year-old grandfather. According to local legend, whoever climbs to the top of the mountain will have a long life.

With pleasure they swam in a cold mountain stream. The water is so soft that the body seems to have been smeared with cream. Half an hour to rest, and the descent begins. It turns out that going down steep slopes is no easier than climbing up. All those who are already lost in the bus and applause meet everyone who comes down from the mountain. We returned to the hotel at dusk. After dinner, I fall asleep to solemn oratorios about the current leader of the people, the great leader Kim Jong Il. The most commonly used words in the songs are Tiangong (leader) and Manse (hurray).

SEPARATED FAMILIES

There is no trace of yesterday's fatigue. Waking up at seven in the morning, I go for a walk around the village. I did not have time to move away from the hotel and approach the first buildings, when I heard: “Sonim! Sonnim!” (which means "guest"). A breathless man in military uniform with no insignia hurriedly explains to me that we can't go any further. Restricted area! You can't, you can't. I treat him with a cigarette - he does not refuse. We are smoking. At the same time, he is constantly trying to close something with his skinny back. Something consists of squat buildings of the barracks type and soldiers marching on the parade ground. Well, this is just us and you will not surprise. On Sakhalin, in almost every village, military units are a border zone! And we were accustomed to bans on movement from childhood.

Before the monetary reform of 1961, we lived in the Listvennichnoye village of the Novo-Aleksandrovsky district. Once every three months, my parents, as stateless persons, had to register with the district police department. Then, with the development of socialist democracy, this period was increased to six months, and subsequently to one year. During the heyday of developed socialism, the registration of Koreans (there were practically no foreigners of other nationalities permanently residing on Sakhalin) was carried out every two years, became customary and was not perceived as an infringement of rights. Generation on-

Born in occupied Korea, our parents were hardworking, submissive and law-abiding.

An illiterate father took me with him to the police department or OViR (Department of Visas and Registration of Foreigners and Stateless Persons) to fill out questionnaires. No one knows how many departure and arrival sheets filled with children's handwriting are stored in the archives of the region. There were numerous model responses that had to be followed strictly. In the column “from where he came from” it was supposed to write: “Liberated by the Soviet Army on Sakhalin”, and in the column “purpose of arrival” - “Arrived for permanent residence”. Naturally, those who arrived by recruitment and mobilized by the Japanese for forced labor did not have relatives abroad, otherwise the registration procedure became complicated many times over. A week later, a passport with a registration mark was issued to the owner.

The absurdity of the situation was that between the village and the regional center there was another administrative entity - the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. To enter the city, a special permit was required, for which one had to go to the same regional center along the only road passing through the city, which cannot be entered by persons without citizenship without special permission. At that time, there were almost no citizens of the USSR among Koreans, so the “removal” of violators of the passport regime from buses and trains was a common occurrence. If you want to distinguish yourself in your service, check the passport of any adult Korean getting off the bus at the station, or go to the market where village women sell vegetables and herbs.

I must say that our local policeman was a kind person in his own way and did not disturb anyone in vain. From time to time, some people collected money among the inhabitants of the village for gifts to the policeman and the chairman of the council. But there were others who punctually observed the law, and then the fine was inevitable. It saved that for many representatives of the law, all Koreans were the same person. Therefore, if necessary, it was always possible to rent a USSR passport. The ban on movement remained until the end of the nineties ...

Before breakfast, I wander around the hotel along the beautiful granite embankment. Multi-colored hills on the other side, bright yellow sapran leaves underfoot, a fisherman in an inflatable boat caught a white big fish And

hit her on the head with a short oar. Black-and-white magpies chirp at the very feet. The freshness of the autumn morning and the gentle rays of the sun cheer me up.

In the city of Anju, where we are going after breakfast, twelve people from our group will meet today with their relatives from nearby towns and villages. Grandmother, in anticipation of meeting her eighty-five-year-old mother, seems to have lost weight from excitement and for the umpteenth time looks impatiently at the wall clock in the hotel lobby.

Thirty-five years have passed since the breakup. She is now sixty-five herself. Three years ago, she, who came to North Korea on the same trip, was not allowed to meet her elderly mother because of the mourning declared in connection with the death of Kim Il Sung. Her heart attack and visa difficulties delayed the meeting for many more days. How the meetings of disparate families are linked with mourning, the ordinary mind cannot understand. High politics and state necessity are a mystery behind seven seals.

The tragedy of the Koreans has been going on for almost a hundred years. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Japan annexed Korea for a long thirty-five years. For forty-five years, Sakhalin Koreans, forgotten by everyone, could not meet with their relatives. In 1937, the Russian Koreans who lived on Far East since the end of the nineteenth century. One hundred and eighty-five thousand people were loaded into freight cars in cold October and transported across Siberia to the snow-covered Kazakh steppes. Forty people in carriages, three trains a day. The dead were piled against the walls of the car so that the living would be warmer. So the dead saved the living. Hastily filled up nameless graves remained on the forgotten deserted half-stations.

In 1945, by decision of the USSR and the USA, Korea was divided into two states along the thirty-eighth parallel. They divided, drew a fatal line across mountains and rivers, cities and towns, destinies and souls of people.

Passing two checkpoints, we drive up to a small suburban hotel located on a low hill. Twenty or thirty people, smartly dressed by the standards of a half-century country that has been in a semi-military situation, peer anxiously into the windows of an approaching bus. Everything around is permeated with a sense of expectation and some kind of anxiety. The door opens. Cheers, hugs, sobs and suddenly - silence. They are silent, peering at each other, recognizing native features through wrinkles and years of waiting. And only hand in hand - do not break.

Our grandmother finally met her old mother. They stand hugging. Both are fragile, withered, very similar - not to be distinguished, only the mother's hair is whiter. Learning the life story of this little energetic woman, many would be shocked.

In a remote province in the south of the Korean peninsula, in a village among waterfalls and sheer cliffs, lived a charming girl, the daughter of wealthy parents. The time came, and she fell in love with a slender, handsome young man from a poor peasant family without memory. Such banal, eternal stories happen at all times on all continents and they do not teach anyone anything. The young man liked the girl, but he was ambitious, and he had his own views on this life. Anyone else in his place would probably have taken advantage of the opportunity to escape from want. He did not want to be a well-fed servant in his wife's house or a poor son-in-law in his own house. Beauty and intelligence are a terrible combination.

The rich have their quirks. The girl's parents were stung by such a long, incomprehensible and indecent, in their opinion, resistance young man. The whims of an only daughter can drive any father crazy. Wishing the happiness of their beloved daughter, the parents set out to marry them without fail. Secretly from her, they gave the young man money for further education and persuaded him to marry. After the official ceremony and a plentiful feast, the newly-born husband suddenly disappeared along with the money, and the sobbing wife, following the strict Confucian rules of that time, went to live in the wretched hut of her father-in-law.

Not a wife or a widow, she lived for four years in hard, unusual peasant labor. She did not dare to return to her parents, such a thing would disgrace their family name by a thousand li. The brothers, seeing the exorbitant suffering of their sister, decided to find and roughly punish the runaway husband, who is rumored to be somewhere in Japan. After two months of persistent searching, they managed to find a fugitive in Tokyo, where he completed his education in high school. The brothers brought the resisting student to his wife, who was waiting for him in a small apartment on the outskirts of the city, and began to wait for her imminent trial. A woman's heart is not subject to reason. Years of trials were not in vain for the couple. Mutual love and passion broke out with such force that now the brothers had to literally tear them apart so that the prodigal husband could pass the final exams.

They had a daughter, who at the age of one, in 1936, they brought to Sakhalin. The girl grew up, not knowing the need, diligently attended school, played with her younger brothers and sisters, and it is not known how her fate would have been if the war had not begun. Each person is given both joy and sorrow in equal proportions, and then through the prism of time they are so mixed up that they become indistinguishable.

On one of the summer days, all the children and women of the mining village were loaded onto open railway platforms and taken away towards Toekhara - today's Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The weather was bad, the bombers were not flying, and the family reached Toekhara in a little over a day, without much incident. There were rumors that a similar train with refugees from the north had come under fire a few days earlier. And those in the know claimed that the Russians landed troops on the way to the city. So believe after that the rumors and knowledgeable people. Northerners were accommodated in a railway station hotel. Due to a lack of space, several families, including their own girls, were sent the next morning in a freight car to Otomari (the city of Korsakov). Half an hour after the train was sent, the station was bombed, and the hotel building was destroyed. Many villagers died. In Korsakov, they missed the ship that was supposed to take them to Japan, but, as it turned out, they were lucky here too. Transport with refugees on the way to the island of Hokkaido was sunk by an unknown submarine. Not a single person was left alive.

A month later, her father was found. In search of a family through the port of Maoka (now Kholmsk), he ended up in Japan, and then returned to Sakhalin to continue his search. Stepping off the ladder of the ship, on the very first street of Korsakov (then Otomari) he met his daughter. Life collisions are almost always more unexpected than any far-fetched plots. After the capitulation of Japan, according to the order of the Soviet authorities, the family was sent to live in the Poronai region. Is it necessary to describe the need of the post-war years? The eldest daughter, along with adults, endured all the hardships of a new life. For two years, the persistent girl graduated from four classes of a Korean school as an external student, she dreamed of becoming a doctor, but life had her own way. I had to leave school and take up housework to help my parents feed the family. At the age of sixteen, according to the customs of those years, the girl was married off. A year later, his father, who worked in one of the timber industry enterprises, went missing. All responsibility for the fate of the children fell on the shoulders of his wife and eldest daughter. Not being able to get an education in the USSR, the sister and three brothers will leave for North Korea to continue their studies at the Kim Il Sung University, and a year later, the mother will leave after the children.

On a distant island land, she will be left all alone with a paralyzed husband and three children in her arms. Three more elders died in infancy after a serious illness. She will devote eighteen years of her life to caring for a motionless sick person, all her youth and mature female years. Years of rage and suffering, despair and humility, jealousy and pity, hatred and love. In order to feed her family and raise three children on her feet, a small, fragile woman will get a job in a construction team, managing to maintain a household with a garden and all kinds of domestic animals. From unbearable male work, my hands ached terribly and my back did not straighten. Once she fell from hastily knocked together scaffolding onto barrels of slaked lime. A severe spinal injury chained her to a hospital bed for a long time. Minor children, the eldest was thirteen years old, carried parcels to the hospital, looked after cattle, cooked food for themselves and their mother, diligently attended school.

There was everything: lonely cold evenings full of hopeless despair, and holidays with certificates of honor and beautiful words. But they didn't give her strength. On this earth, she was kept by an irresistible desire to raise children, save her husband and see her mother. What mental strength allowed her to accomplish this feat? Ask her. “What is special about it, everyone lives like this,” she will answer. Even now, in her old age, she works to help her siblings living in Korea. Today her dream is coming true. Thirty-five years later, she meets with her mother, and only four hours are allowed for this meeting ...

For the umpteenth time we are invited to the bus. We drive away slowly, leaving them, infinitely happy and unhappy, on a small patch of land in the middle of a vast world. For a fee, they will be provided with a single room, where they will finally be left alone. A sixty-five-year-old daughter will throw on her mother a warm jacket bought in advance, carefully preserved, and a down scarf. Forgetting about everything in the world, holding with one hand on the wrinkled, dry hand of her mother, she will look for something in the trunks, finally, she will take out several hundred-dollar bills carefully folded among the linen and put them in her mother’s pockets so that during a random search they won’t take everything at once . All white and, like a child, a little mother, with happy tears in her eyes, patiently tries on all the updates, occasionally being interested in prices and childishly surprised at the results of some of her simple calculations. She diligently tries everything that her daughter will treat, asking dozens of times about the health of her grandchildren. In a few minutes they will tell each other about themselves, about mutual acquaintances and former neighbors, realizing with horror that there is, in fact, nothing to talk about. Everything is clear without words. And the daughter will cry, leaning against her mother’s hand, and the old mother, caressing her gray hair with an almost weightless hand, will stare in a detached way into some insurmountable distance known only to her ... And so they will come out, tearful, holding hands, from glass door of the hotel and silently step towards eternal separation...

The world is huge, but there is nowhere on earth where a mother and daughter could meet ... Perhaps - everything is different in heaven ...

For a long time, the mother waved her weightless hand after the bus, which was forever taking away her gray-haired daughter from her. The steady hum of the bus engine is interrupted by sobs and heavy sighs. Has it all gone already? Did you dream of a meeting?

Eternity looks out the window With silvery icicles of stars ... Everything is mixed up in me, Whether it's a dream, or reality - I don't understand. Maybe I lived my life, Or life only dreamed of me... A silvery star On a cold, foggy window...

In North Korea - "thaw", a weak breeze of change. Signs of the new appear like little green sprouts on the cracked concrete road leading to the old barracks. Maybe over the years they will grow here beautiful trees, or maybe tomorrow the ruthless roller will crush the weak shoots. And then again, day and night, columns of revolutionary soldiers will march along the road.

Markets open in cities and towns, occasionally there are kiosks and stalls on the streets. In shops - let while currency - on show-windows there were goods. Lively young people appeared, buying up tals - foreign currency won. In cities, Western-made cars are quite common. As one of the guides said in a private conversation, Korea is studying the experience of Chinese “perestroika”. They have long had a "special relationship" with China. Local residents with relatives there can visit them almost freely on private visas, while a fifty-year age limit is set for a similar trip to Russia.

To my world

The Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung is one of the five mausoleums in the world. The remaining four are in Moscow, Hanoi, Tehran and Beijing. It used to be the residence of Kim Il Sung, which was often used as the Palace of Congresses. After the death of the Great Leader, this huge complex was converted into his Mausoleum. Foreigners can visit the mausoleum only on Thursdays and Sundays, and this is the only place where there is a dress code: we were asked to dress in our best, strict and discreet clothes.

Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung

We were all lined up in a column of four people, and after checking the lists we were allowed inside. The road to the mausoleum is covered with concrete floors. On the left side, Korean workers lined up, and we passed on the right and skipped the line. Kim Il Sung died in 1994. Usually mourning for the deceased in Korea lasts 3 days. But in this case it was extended for 3 years. Although power immediately passed into the hands of Kim Jong Il, all this time the country officially lived without a head of state. Only in 1998 was it announced to the people that Kim Jong Il had been elected to the post of chairman of the DPRK Defense Committee, and he was renamed from "Beloved Leader" to "Great Leader" and "Great Commander". His father received the title "Eternal President".

Queue to the "Eternal President" of the DPRK

I want to tell you about visiting the gift museum for two Kims. Each Great has his own "house", where they are all put on display. The eldest has 222 thousand gifts, while the youngest has a little more than 50 thousand so far. At the entrance to each museum there is an electronic scoreboard with the number of offerings. Apparently, so as not to alter the plates with numbers. Gifts are different: from true masterpieces and works of art to outright consumer goods. In general, all this is very strongly reminiscent of the "Fields of Miracles" museum.

Buddhist temple in North Korea

Before the gift museum, we stopped at a Buddhist temple. Buddhism is the official religion of North Korea. But we did not see believers anywhere, and this temple is the only reminder of religion. Instead of the Buddha, Koreans worship Kim Il Sung and his viceroy on earth, Kim Jong Il, literally deifying them. All these gigantic monuments and monumental structures are nothing but Kim temples. Not without reason, in each of them, our guides made us bow to their portraits. From the temple to the museum of gifts, officially called the "Exhibition of Friendship between Nations", it was only 5 minutes by car. We parked and waited for our guide. One cannot move in this place.

Kim Il Sung Gift Museum

As I already wrote, each Kim has his own building. From the outside it looks small, but in reality it is only a facade. The museum itself goes deep under the rock and at the same time is an excellent bomb shelter. Inside, we were taken along one of the corridors 400 meters long! Entrance doors they weigh 5 tons, open with a button and are guarded by machine gunners with silver "Kalash". We started our tour from the museum of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung. Although it looks like an old wooden building, it was built in 1978 from concrete and does not have a single window.

Entrance doors weigh 5 tons and are guarded by machine gunners

We were mainly interested in gifts given by our compatriots, and we were led to the hall of gifts from the Soviet Union. Our gifts take three large halls. Basically, these are tea sets, books, paintings that are scary to hang even in the garden back room, and samovars. There is a separate room with armored vehicles. Finally, we looked at two armored railway cars donated by Stalin and Mao, respectively.

Terrace at the Gift Museum, North Korea

The Kim Jong Il Museum was more modest, but also resembled an impregnable fortress.

"Modest" Museum of Kim Jong Il

In this museum, you can trace the evolution of Samsung and LG TVs. Looks like they give him a new TV every year. I was also pleased with the gifts from the director of the South Korean furniture factory. As many as 3 huge halls are filled with his bedroom sets and kitchen tables. All guides in museums in North Korea wear National costumes, and they are always easy to spot in a crowd.