Editor’s note: It’s already been 10 years since Kim Jong Un officially assumed leadership in North Korea. For the past decade, he has prioritized improving the people’s lives and developing the economy and focused on constructing all sorts of facilities, including medical, commercial, industrial and residential facilities, promoting these projects widely. Daily NK has recently launched a series called “A Deep Dive into Kim Jong Un’s Legacy Projects,” which looks at the construction process of the facilities referred to over the last decade as Kim’s “legacy projects,” examining how they are run, how North Koreans view them, and what North Korea plans to do with them.
The Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone is one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s most heavily emphasized projects. Since calling for “completing the construction of the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone in the shortest time possible” in his 2018 New Year’s address, Kim has made several visits to the site and has otherwise demonstrated a special interest in the project.
In fact, with an atmosphere of dialogue between North Korea and South Korea and between North Korea and the United States taking root in 2018, North Korean authorities tried to roll back international sanctions on the country and expand ways to earn foreign currency through the development of tourist sites.
North Korean authorities tried to complete the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone in the shortest time possible, working overnight to finish construction by April 15, 2019, just one year later.
However, the completion date was delayed due to a lack of construction supplies.
North Korea ended up announcing a target completion date of April 15, 2020, but projects aimed at developing tourism were suspended after the country implemented intensive quarantine measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including the closure of its borders.
As North Korean authorities shifted their emphasis from “tourism” to “public health,” most of the personnel they had tasked with building the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone and Samjiyon Tourism Zone were redeployed to building the Pyongyang General Hospital.
A HAVEN FOR KKOTJEBI IN THE WINTER
Having been virtually abandoned for three years during the COVID pandemic, the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone is reportedly so poorly maintained that homeless beggars — or kkotjebi — now wander around it.
A source in North Korea recently told Daily NK that although the site looks like a ruin – for example, buildings lack windows or finishings – it nevertheless presents to kkotjebi a hideaway where they can escape the bitter cold of midwinter.
The source said that from the outside, the buildings look finished, but inside, they still remained incomplete.
“[The buildings] are no different from toilets, with bowel movements left behind by the kkotjebi everywhere,” he said.
The 24th Brigade of the Seventh General Bureau remains at the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone to maintain the facilities, but it requires more than a single brigade to maintain upkeep of the site given its massive scale, with over 150 buildings.
The Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone has a few buildings that remain just metal frames, but exterior construction at the complex is reportedly 90% completed.
As for the interiors, over half of the buildings have only basic finishings done, meaning it would likely take quite a long time to finish the insides.
Since Kim Jong Un himself called for a swift completion of the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone, not only were specialized military personnel with past experience in construction tasked with the project, but other groups and organizations lent support as well, including regional labor brigades and labor from different workplaces and government agencies.
With constant replacements of construction personnel from the very start of the project in 2018 and massive deployments of unskilled workers, onsite construction failed to go as planned, and the entire project went sideways.
Because of this, the person in charge of planning and the onsite general manager were sacked during a 2019 end-of-year review, and a decision was made to permanently deploy specialized construction troops to the site. With the start of the pandemic, however, plans to permanently deploy troops to the site were trashed.
REGIME BEGINS EFFORTS TO RESTART CONSTRUCTION
North Korea recently issued an order regarding the restart of construction at the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone.
Daily NK’s source said the construction headquarters of the 24th Brigade of the Seventh General Bureau received an order in late January calling on it to determine what equipment, supplies and construction manpower the brigade needs to complete the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone. The brigade was also tasked with drawing up a new timetable for construction work.
Given this development, North Korea may soon announce a new target date to complete the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone and restart full-scale construction efforts.
North Korea’s border closure has yet to be lifted, but with the country suffering deepening economic difficulties over the last three years of COVID, the authorities may be rushing to restart tourism as a way to avoid international sanctions and make foreign currency legally.
However, residents of Kangwon Province are giving the restart of construction on the Wonsan-Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone the cold shoulder.
In order for construction to restart, the exteriors and interiors of the construction site will need to be cleaned up, and locals will inevitably be mobilized for this task.
“The buildings without doors have become gathering points for kkotjebi, and now they’re full of human waste and soot from fires,” one resident of Kangwon Province told Daily NK recently.
“And who’s going to clean all that up? Ultimately, the people of Kangwon Province will be mobilized, and labor and money will be wasted on a project when nobody knows when it will open or if tourists will actually come.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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