What Kim Jong Un lied about / North Korea / How People Live / The People

the North Korean people are terrified of escaping their country one of the most famous North Korean refugees lives in America now she wrote a book about her experiences saying that as an 11 year old girl she was afraid that the great leader was actually reading her mind while she was crossing the border we're watching a military Jeep on the North Korean side it is about half a mile to the South Korean border and is approaching the checkpoint the driver normally stops to show his ID instead this person hits the gas rushing past the officers at full speed the Sentry runs out onto the road and signals with warning on the radio the other sentries rushed from their posts the Jeep goes out of sight behind the trees runs up onto the curb and loses a wheel it is stuck the man opens the jeep store and rushes out it is only about 20 feet to the South Korean border and freedom the sentries opened fire even though it's forbidden to shoot in the Demilitarized Zone four of them are trying to shoot the escapee one of them even crosses the South Korean border in the chase the man from the Jeep finally escapes North Korea this road we see is in South Korea but even so a second later a bullet hits him and he falls however he is still breathing [Music] escaped from North Korea hi guys my name is anthon I'm that blogger who went to North Korea and also these did China at the time there was a kernel virus pandemic want to introduce myself I'm 29 I'm a reporter and I travel around the world I'm not paid by anyone for what I'm doing I just choose the countries by myself normally an interested in country that you would never travel to so I like to go to some dangerous places like Venezuela or Somalia or somewhere else and cover the way people live there they're regular people so it's like not a touristic content so I'd travel around the world by myself and I also cover all the costs by myself so that's why I decided to create a patreon page there's a link in the description if you're interested in what I'm doing please follow me there subscribe and dinesh so you will help me to create much more interesting content for those who you know do denied me I will make some extra videos so I'll be able to use it much more countries and go much deeper and further than far something like this and what's more all of my patron subscribers will be the first ones who see my videos so before publishing my video on YouTube I will definitely do it on pod surance so if you do help me I'll help you altogether so now let's get back to North Korea my friends today I want to tell you about people who flee North Korea risking their lives getting across the world's most heavily defended border zone despite knowing their relatives remaining in North Korea may be sent off to a labor camp every North Korean who escapes the country leaves a hostage back home the man from the Jeep survived by the way I will show you where he is now I'll ask the Korean people about who can legally leave the country and how and how much it cost them in bribes you work in Beijing no Africa who are those North Korean elite class each with a smartphone in each pocket living in skyscrapers in Pyongyang while the rank-and-file citizens work seven days a week under constant surveillance similar to that in the prison it seems that these workers even squat on command it looks like they're resting but even this is conducted in strict order they sit in line organized into several rows I will show you one of the aircraft belonging to the North Korean Airlines a company that is often called the world's only no star airline look the curtains windows don't close I will show you the new North Korea where beer costs 20 cents a bottle as well as the black markets where the North Koreans can buy a Hollywood movies like Titanic I will play the music of our local stars for them to hear and compare my name is leotta and I will show you the life of people behind the North Korean border please hit the like button now and please subscribe to our channel the more subscribers we have the easier it is for me to raise money for new trips I will post some important information on my Instagram page this is where I'll post the results of our prize drawing as well as the first photos from this trip check it out and follow me there that's the best way to contact me I try to reply to everyone via direct messages a shot is fired from the flare pistol Russian border guards on a motorboat have closed in on a North Korean boat call up your dogs these are North Korean poachers in the Sea of Japan they are not just fishing in a forbidden area they are doing so while armed these men are carrying guns they even tried to challenge the Russian border guards they're dropping their cargo the North Koreans put up lamps all over the deck so they can fish during the nights three hundred such fishermen were caught at the Russia North Korean border over the last few months this news is how I learned that North Korea actually shares a border with Russia I got a unique opportunity to climb to the top of this tower overlooking the North Korean border one could see everything from here the border lies along this river and that is where our border guards patrolled the area North Korea Russia the Russian North Korea border runs for only 18 miles but even this tiny strip of land is closely guarded across the bridge lies North Korea we can even hear patriotic music coming from the other side of course this situation raises the question how can with Korea fishermen even reach foreign waters that people are prohibited from leaving the country the answer is that there's a certain group of North Korean people who are not only allowed to leave the country but are even sent out by the government the widespread notion that no North Korean people are allowed to leave the country has found its way to all corners of the internet in truth however the statement is both true and false how so the reason is any citizen can receive de-facto permission to leave the country but they are required to have a good reason for doing so like for instance having relatives in China this can happen if your sauce bun allows it as Ogburn is a personal rating system used in north korea as soon as a citizen turned 17 the government makes a personal file on them that is updated every two years there was a similar system depicted in the black mare in TV series there was an episode where people rated each other giving out stars from polite behavior in North Korea people receive stars from political enthusiasms the difference here is that people are born with a certain sog bond that varies depending on who their parents are for instance if one of their ancestors to scape the country the person is placed in either the wavering or the hostile group there are three group ratings in North Korea friendly wavering and hostile during his speech in 1958 Kim il-sung's stated that the moment 25% of the population formed the main group the wavering group included 55% of the population and the remaining 20% to the hostile group your grouping influences what jobs you can get what universities you can enter whether or not you can live in the capital city of Pyongyang your number in line to receive rations from the government as well as many other privileges therefore you can apply for leaving the country and even receive permission if your sog bun allows it margarit workers are also allowed to leave the country the workers I met on the train in the previous video were migrant workers too we were working in Algeria working for four years my friends it is okay for me to talk about this this is the official public version written in all the papers and it was also the version known internationally to anyone worried about the people from this train they will be all right I used the interpreter to ask them how much money they made in Algeria don't ask he whispers back to me ask me No a man from a different group used to work in naka a Russian city so he speaks a little Russian did you earn a lot of money in Russia not so much in Algeria not much how much how much $3,000 for two years $3,000 yeah 125 dollars a month in one month is that a lot in Korea it is only a little in Korea too just a little yeah what can you buy with that enough for an apartment or a car no a car no no no the man is one of the workers as well he speaks English what do you work as what is your job an architect do you work in Beijing no in Africa really where in Angola in Angola wait a second Angola but they were just talking about working in Algeria these are nowhere close to one another and to get it wrong is very telling the claim that he lived in Algeria for four years cannot possibly be true as I was trying to figure this out I remembered the footage I saw in the North Korean district in the capital of China a few hours prior to my getting on this tray I covered up his face just in case even though there is nothing to punish him for pay attention to the collared t-shirt and the watch this is the same person this footage is from a nearby shop in the same district see this man a collared t-shirt with blue stripes and a trapezoidal pattern and here he is again on the train here another man who you can recognize by his striped t-shirt here he is in the first shop and here he is on the train I started to suspect that these people were lying to me about their work so I found an interpreter who listened carefully to what the North Koreans were saying to one another this was very difficult actually because people mostly study the South Korean version of the language and the dialects are so different that a South Korean hardly understands 10% of what a North Korean is saying listen closely to what they said to one another when I asked about what they were doing we'll say Algeria Algeria okay right during cover story so they were working neither in Algeria nor in Angola they were actually smuggling goods to trade in China the architect is their leader he doesn't deal with merchandise he's only responsible for transporting a group and that is why he can speak English but why would they like to me this is because China where the North Koreans really worked relies heavily on his relationship with the Western market the Western market in turn supports the sanctions the USA imposes against North Korea this means that China cannot legally hire North Korean workers and he adds both China and North Korea are good socialist friends so they do it under the table a long time ago the North Korean government developed a program for those who want to work abroad if you do not have any runaway relatives you may submit an application and once it is reviewed you receive a visa for precisely one year then you have to renew it there's a whole district in China for such workers [Music] this is what Beijing's North Korean district looks like to the left is the North Korean embassy look closely and you see that the embassy takes serious security measures there's a fence outside with a giant brick wall behind it another fence barbed wire and lots of trees only behind all of this can you see the embassy building thus there's an entire district formed around the embassy that is where the North Korean migrant workers live they sell furs you quite the luxury clothing and one could say there are also three other shops in this same building they sell kitchenware in this one over there you can see school supplies beauty products and so on note that the people here only speak the North Korean language we were visiting this place with a Chinese guy but he didn't understand what they were saying I should add that he feels that they have formed their own society here he says that they never tell him where they are from but how much money they are paid or anything else really it is a closed community so to speak when North Korean migrant workers come to China the state kind of just [ __ ] these Koreans live there yeah this is the place for them they don't want to live anywhere else what do you mean they don't want to settle in other districts they don't they only want to live with other Koreans yes they want to live with their own people next to the embassy we just passed it so these flats were built specifically for them yeah yeah and the rent is different from what you pay yeah I think so they support each other I mean like friendship the international friendship the migrant workers usually live in buildings such as these they're five-story buildings they have no elevators some of them have built-in air conditioners though there are very few of them people work here too they have their own jobs businesses restaurants their own businesses their own communities yes they hold their own restaurants and cafes people write freely on the tables for instance here in Chinese it is written they're serving a North Korean national dish it is a cold noodle dish with the North Korean accents of the recipe but this item is nowhere on the menu it's not stated on the menu nor is it shown on the sign boards the owners of such companies from a whole separate clan in modern North Korea they're called tenchu which roughly translates as the masters of money not only can they afford expensive watches but also houses equipped with satellite TV dishes even though these are actually prohibited in the country legally you can only watch cable they have their own water heaters on the rooftops that can afford the most beautiful apartments standing on the most beautiful streets a great many of which are unoccupied each of these costs seventy to eighty thousand dollars the children of the Korean upper-class have expensive smartphones I showed you in the previous video that they have a chess app installed I realized that since I'm in North Korea I have to try dog me [Music] had it not been for the relationship with you my viewers I would never have tried dog meat because I have a dog this is Patrick my Corgi I love him dearly and he is waiting for me back in Moscow maybe this is his distant Korean relative this is what cooked dog meat looks like I went to his smell at first I could not tell that it is dogging by the smell and smells nothing like a dog it smells just like your usual soup some kind of meat beef or chicken [Music] this dog meat meal cost me $5 it's a lot of money in North Korea dog meat is a delicacy around here so watching me squirm like this people outside just look at me in the same way Russian people would look at some spoiled rich white jerk listen this is really delicious the meat is unbelievably tender it's amazing had I not known it were a dog I would eat it every day so delicious so delicious this is really true what else can I say [Music] really delicious folks here believe you should eat dog meat soup during the three hottest days in summer because they believe that this mean and it's fat prevent the body from overheating Pyongyang's summer can get really hot over 104 degrees Fahrenheit since it's also very humid here summer time is very difficult to handle eating dog meat feels very strange I feel like I was the most disgusting human being on earth and when I put the spoon in my mouth I was thinking what a creep I must be to do this but once you start chewing it you realize that this meat is delicious it's also cooked extremely well very tender it tastes nothing like chicken it's somewhat similar to well braised beef very similar so if one day people in Moscow learned how to make braised shwarma you won't be able to tell the difference I tell you I'm trying a dog rib [Music] this dog is much skinnier than the previous one and it tastes less similar to beep I think I've had enough even though the meat is delicious I still feel disgusted I went to wash mine how that that's how I feel businessmen buy dogs from farmers for $40 each they're in a big demand for restaurants cafes and hotels a farmer in North Korea gives 70% of his earnings to the government and gets to keep only the remaining 30 this is actually considered a good deal because the system used to work outside percentages in the past they were demanded to give a fixed Sun to the state regardless of how much money they actually made that was one of Kim Jong Un's reforms which actually improved the state's economy a bit thanks to him you can meet some merchants not only under the bridges but also at the center of Pyongyang businessmen can legally open up shops cafes and restaurants this opportunity is no longer forbidden by the government actually technical developments do manage to reach North Korea this young lady Park young me escape the country 2007 and here is what she had to say about North Korean teenagers I am 21 years old and there are many changes in North Korea this is my generation we are often called the black market generation we had access to outside mass media sources private markets gave us access not only to food and clothes but also to DVDs with movies such as Titanic and USB drives with Wikipedia pages black market started popping up in North Korea as far back as the 90s after the fall of the Soviet Union when the hunger pushed people to look for any way to feed themselves and survive they started selling anything they could find this man bought a card of some corn like weeds this one is dealing in rice the black market in the city of wonsan in 1998 how are these old ladies selling factory made shoes from the black market you might ask it's simple really they bought them from the neighboring country of China through the very same North Korean Iron Curtain these North Koreans had Chinese relatives friends or connections in the government and they started to make use of these contacts back in the 90s bribes serves as a solution to any problem getting a bus from China to North Korea costs from 200 to 400 dollars one of the most popular types of trade involved harvesting North Korean marine life such as mussels and sea cucumbers which sold like hotcakes in China at first all the harvesting was done manually but as the turnover increased the merchants started to build specialized ships as far as paperwork was concerned a businessman was considered merely a worker at the state's official agency but in truth the officials simply turned a blind eye every time a commercial vessel went out to sea the military would even get part of profit from the trade at the end of each month such prophecies became widespread private enterprises emerged in the guise of state owned factories ministries and so on a businessman would personally run a company that was officially registered as a state-owned company and simply share his profits with the government ships were used to transport large quantities of goods out of the country smugglers Delton petty trading this footage was taken in the dead of night two people are dragging something at dawn the military man who was given a bribe then pass covers their tracks using his coat the petty trade at the border is mostly done by these so-called fishermen this footage was taken at the river that separates North Korea and China fish and Jen Seng their ginseng is the best cigarettes and so on this saleswoman is wearing a head scarf over a cap this is what all the employees who are trusted with the sleeping money look like I managed to film one on camera next to a train station in Pyongyang but then she tried to hide behind the kiosks behind me is a taxi station this is a very centralized operation there is a dispatcher who allocates the passengers passengers pay him the fare not the taxi driver not everyone in North Korea can receive a driver's license you can only get it if it's required for a job like if you become a taxi driver for example take a look at these drivers they're different from ours in the sense that they are wearing a uniform however these drivers are not sticking to the dress code they wear black trousers and white shirts but they are also supposed to wear a necktie the aircar yo taxi operator is one of North Korea's largest business empires another one of these giant businesses is a company called masa ki rogue that is in charge of a local ski resort believe it or not the North Koreans have those two masts Akira is also involved in tourism they organize bus trips and even sell bottled water this means they provide money for the socialist regime in a very capitalistic manner in north korea tourism developed so quickly that tourism ads are now displayed virtually side by side with socialist propaganda these advertisements are all over the city look at this for example open the way for great socialist construction there are commercial banners too this one advertises minibuses its slogan reads let's roll into the future and yet despite the development of capitalism the state treats its average people the workers the same as they always have out the window I can see the Koreans going to work behind my back is a construction site they have just arrived at their workplace it's around just half past 7 there's a clear social division in Korean society the first group are the workers the builders this one is an all-female group this latter group consists of the higher-ups probably supervisors they come to work later look where they are now they still have 10 to 15 minutes before the working day begins it looks like they are resting but it is all in strict order they sit in a line organized into several rows note how they even squat on command a soldier was assigned here specifically not to let any strangers onto the construction site he opened the gate by the way see how they didn't spare any money for a concrete perimeter wall they put up some concrete blocks instead of a fence a pair of workers is assigned to each task it is not the korean way for any person to work alone look at this example you can't just send someone to clean the floor with a mop there must be a supervisor pointing his finger to where to push the water and where to push it from take a look at his outfit by the way this is an example of North Korean high fashion a business suit with short sleeves the Korean way of thinking holds that the more people are working the better here for instance people are putting up bricks on barriers on the highway I counted 63 people on a portion of highway 300 feet long tractors and bicycles are used to carry construction materials we even see a bull drawn cart here North Koreans are exceptionally hard-working no spare to replace the tire on a tractor our cart this man made these makeshift wheels composed of iron rims they don't even have a mop and a brush not to mention cleaning machines look over there the workers picked up branches and carefully cleaned each tile no gas-powered lawn mowers a man uses a sickle not only to cut grass on the roadside but also to uproot the sprouts making their way up from underground no pressing machine to do the tiling on the pavement they will use their own weights is there a need to house people next to the workplace they put up tents on the wooden planks put some stones on the top and there you go someone left a hole in the roof here though this is what local gold miners live like the government allows anyone to mine the gold here but on two conditions that the government receive a part of the profits and that the miners set up their own mining excavator that's for the local rivers there's usually a machine every three to six miles it's very simple they drill a hole use a hoe to raise the ground pan it and pick out the gold some of the companies don't even use the hose they simply take a pot put some pipes into it and use those to raise the dirt which they later sift through manually seeing the rural people here up close as a rare opportunity look at the man behind things he is farming the land using a simple digging hoe the woman behind him is picking the grass with her bare hands another feature of the rural regions is that people here work more for example people in Pyongyang worked ten hours a day while also working six days a week in the countryside however people work ten days at a time not following the usual seven-day week as a passenger here they work ten days in a row then get one day off then 10 days more and so on farmers make their housing right in the fields look there's an actual pit house dug three feet into the ground there are some plastic bags on the rooftop they even put up a furnace with a chimney another option is to build a hut hay is put over the framework always with a couple of sandbags to try didn't stop at least some of the water that will eventually run through the fields are regularly flooded this is vital for growing rice private enterprises are often run by women there are the ones who bring in 75% of the family's income sometimes even as much as 90 percent all men in North Korea are required to be employed even if a factory is at a standstill a man would still have to go to his workplace even if it means just sitting there or finding things to clean this means that the men keep going to work even if they do not earn any money for it otherwise they are punished for not working consequently women can be housewives but they combine the lifestyle of being a housewife with some sort of profession this is a real snake inside this bottle this is a real snake right a yellow snake yeah there's a real yellow snake inside the bottle around 50 you mean the alcohol 50 percent alcohol this is a 100 proof drink this is only for research purposes promise [Music] do you need water I think you can see it on my face how is it everything he's just fine this has some serious kick I'm telling you bit of an aftertaste - it feels like I have scales on my mouth the locals visit a different type of place as I understand these places don't have any names to them look at this restaurant for instance it hasn't got a name the sign simply reads restaurant over there is a drugstore and the sign reads drugstore no name that's a simple grocery store and over there is well we'd call it a pub they simply have a pub sign people come here to drink beer one litre cost about 20 cents people get a beer ticket every day they are handed over by the government one ticket gives you one liter of beer a day for free but if you want more you have to pay an additional 20 cents this sounds great but unfortunately I can't check if it's true but still food prices for the locals are indeed low for example I walked into a drugstore over there on the shelf as a blood clot medication the price check reads 300 the chemist explained it divided by a hundred so it's three dollars we found the same medicine on sale for foreigners at the price of 42 dollars this was shown on the Internet the country's greatness is not entirely in its propaganda lines technical progress is actually happening for real as well there are traffic lights along with traffic controllers at the crossroads the traffic controllers are there on standby in case something goes wrong with the electricity there aren't any traffic lights outside the capital people drive the old way with the help of controllers the another novelty is speed control cameras though I'm not actually sure if they work or not our driver was going at full speed and never put a seatbelt on most of the local people use trolley buses and trams so the queues of the stations are enormous in the early mornings and evenings there are very few buses yes our electricity shortages all over the country but the electricity situation is better than the oil supplies our biggest problem is the lack of petrol I mean oil it's expensive right same prices as Moscow I think is it hard to come by there is not much of it here yeah we still have enough oil to get by though but getting oil can be kind of difficult we often say that it is better not to buy it for ourselves but to leave it all for the public transportation services some travel by subway the subway in North Korea is quite similar to ours the only difference is the price the fare is five one for the locals it's practically a bargain the subway has two lines by the way it's more than in my native town of Samara the reason is that we have only had one line for 32 years now in Pyongyang there are 18 stations with the subway opening at 6:30 a.m. and closing down at 9:30 p.m. and here you can see a North Korean version of the yandex metro app let me show you how it works right now I'm here let's say I want to go to this station the electronic board shows you the right way the same goes for the directions the doors are not automatic so you have to open them by yourself by him [Applause] the rush-hour here starts at 7:00 a.m. the crowds are so dense that it is very difficult to get through but by 8 a.m. the crowds are gone the subway is considered to be one of the deepest in the world as you can see the only difference is that not all the lights are working right behind my back and the lighting is just dim in here there's a smell of something old too and yet people are fine with reading here look the man is reading aloud some are browsing their phones just like in Russia another form of entertainment is reading newspaper at the station people just come up here to newspaper display stands like this one they come up here and start reading newspapers trying to kill time by the way this is a very typical trade of North Korea people don't keep their own newspapers here this is because the party's policies are printed in the newspapers but the policies tend to change sometimes it would be possible to track these changes in the newspapers but the government does not want its people to do this for then they would know that the government and the leader are capable of making mistakes that is why you'll never find a stack of newspapers dating to a certain year you only have access to today's issue the party has changed but nobody recognizes this by design food Pyongyang's most recognizable building the pyramid-shaped Ryugyong hotel is still unfinished not only that but it should be pointed out that it was supposed to have opened before I Anton Yadav was born 30 years ago this hotel has 105 floors the exterior walls are made of glass a very expensive building it isn't finished yet it isn't finished you can't stay there yet better luck next time even locals make fun of it's now Pyongyang's rude young Hotel is legendary because its construction has been going on for decades now before a certain year it simply stood like a gigantic concrete box and then at some point it started to sink it to the ground then the government signed a contract with an Egyptian firm that eventually helped to finish the building but all I did was glaze it this means it is no more than a huge pyramid it's just concrete in glass this building has become what is probably the modern world's most expensive neon sign it is used to project propaganda slogans in the evening creating a lovely view [Applause] in view of all these stories and rumors it is quite difficult to believe that life in North Korea is getting better even a little bit although in truth it really is the propaganda in the neighboring country South Korea is way more abundant than it is here for example there was a story about how the talks between Trump and Kim jong-un fell through and the South Korean newspaper reported that the great leader ordered the execution of kim youngchul north korean special envoy but the next day we saw him giving a speech at a ceremony in 2013 it was reported that Kim Jong Un's former girlfriend a singer by the name of Yongsan wall a lovely woman by the way was executed for being involved in the pornography industry but two years later she was seeing singing in Beijing and there was a hilarious story on websites like Reddit in 2014 the North Korean TV show showed how their football team beat Brazil scoring seven oh but in fact North Korea didn't even participate in the competition in the first place yahoo sports conducted a fact check and it turned out that the host spoke a different language and the whole lip singing thing was miss times the more advanced the technologies become the more vulnerable North Korea is to the outside world with this in mind law enforcement officials more and more tend to turn a blind eye to such small things as someone smuggling a record play across the border at cetera young Koreans have quite a good knowledge of Russian music a TV broadcast at the Korean restaurant shows a Russian singer whose name I don't even know [Music] I love the North Koreans listen to songs by Stas Mikhailov oxime Iran and Monica [Music] which song do you like most the first one you like the first one it's for adults and the least the second one the younger generation buys DVD players and CDs with American movies at the market here's the girl talking about watching Titanic for the first time I never saw anything about love stories between men and women there are no books no songs no press no movies about love there is no Romeo and Juliet every story was propaganda a turning point in my life was when I saw Titanic I was astounded that anyone would make a movie out of such a shameful story I was wondering if the director and the actors will be put to death for this by the way I'm really glad that DiCaprio is alive why would the actors be killed well in case you forgot DiCaprio's character falls in love with Rose who had a husband up there on the Titanic and then she in dicaprio make out till the captain gets stuffy this kind of display of physical intimacy is a taboo in North Korea if a couple has seen so much as holding hands that means they are a husband and wife until the end nobody in North Korea files for divorce divorces are actually non-existent well it's officially possible to file for a divorce in practice divorce is not mentioned in government forms therefore in practice it appears not to exist when I told someone that there are people in Russia who have had five marriages or more his reaction was disbelief what how many five it is just inconceivable for them to get married five times even if your husband or wife gets thrown in jail you are simply likely to end up there with him or her as well people here start families quite early I once had a talk with some North Koreans in Pyongyang about how sad it was when children are born with abnormalities they looked at me as if I were an idiot they could not understand how children can be born with abnormalities why did they believe this not so long ago you were not allowed to live in Pyongyang if you had a bad ascribed status the so called son bum furthermore if for example a child with a disability was born into a family that family had to move away from Pyongyang to other regions actually there are a ton of restrictions should one of your family members God forbid do something out of the ordinary you are likely to be forced to move to by out of the ordinary for example if someone from your family tries to cross the border and escape for something equally horrible this kind of thing will lead you to being forced sleeping on the ankle people in the capital even have restrictions on the kind of hairstyles that can have this is the list of approved haircuts for men there are only 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 haircuts 12 haircuts this is true I chose this one it's for foreigners it cost me $10 I do not believe I look anything like this this guy is just very thin maybe that is why we don't look anything alike so imagine you want to shave your head or just wear your hair in a scruffy style you must go live in the countryside then but frankly speaking there will be many people watching you there two North Korean citizens cannot travel from one town to another at will in order to travel anywhere they first must complete a special application form to receive special business trip permits this form is then reviewed and approved or not there are also closed cities in the country same as there are in Russia and to gain access to such a place one needs a completely different application form only relatives of the locals can visit these towns it takes a week for such an application to be reviewed so as a rule as soon as they arrive in town a person from Pyongyang must check in with an organization called the neighborhood watch or a meaning bomb in Korean this Korean organization usually consists of 25 to 50 families that live in the same village or block the point is that the community members should watch even surveil one another the chief person usually a woman gathers information about each community member and reports it to the local organizations this all starts in childhood children become members of the Korean children's Union when they're only seven years old but as the military that is under the most constant watch in North Korea the length of military service is 10 years for men and 7 for women that person who jumped out of the Jeep at the beginning of the video actually used to serve in the North Korean army he was a driver for an officer his name is Oh Jung sung he is only 25 years old but he changed his name I still can't believe this is me all the bullets ended up in him one two three four four at least four I had a really bad feeling about his chances when I first saw him how much blood did he lose he lost over 50% during the operation they found a mass that looked like a strap or a rope in young saeng's intestines this mass turn out to be tapeworms the biggest tapeworm turned out to be 12 inches long and the smallest one was about an inch long in total there were 52 of them there was a claim that he committed a crime in North Korea which led to several people being murdered there are no specific details but he believed that escaping from North Korea was the only way he could save his life what was it like to have your friends your colleagues shooting at you when you were running for freedom if I had been them I would have done the same this is certainly true it is because any sentries who don't shoot at him would have been court-martialed however the border with South Korea is a desperate measure for runaways it is the most protected place in North Korea and very few even dare to tread there when escaping the North Koreans usually run across the Chinese border the border with North Korea is virtually unguarded on the Chinese side in other words the only thing holding back the flow of escapees from North Korea to China is North Korea itself but there is almost no chance of staying in China for long if a North Korean refugee in China is caught and fails to bribe whoever caught him they will definitely be deported back to North Korea all illegal immigrants understand this so once they get to China they quickly try to lead for someplace else once the escapees understand the actual conditions in China they usually try to escape to South Korea getting from China to South Korea however is virtually impossible this is the matter of diplomatic relationships the Chinese government does not allow this because they understand that if China lets people escape to South Korea it will worsen their relationship with North Korea after escaping from North Korea through the Chinese border Kim stole Lee was traveling with her family on a bus to China our bus was stopped eight hours after our departure this time there was a Chinese officer he ordered everyone to show him their documents he was asking names asking questions about what city we were born in where we were going and why it was obvious that he was looking for escapees from North Korea my heart froze in fear even though my relatives had Chinese documents I managed to procure none of them could speak Chinese the officer asked my brother to come to him my brother froze in place the officer spoke to him twice the officer was annoyed then I got up and told the officer that my brother was deaf and mute and I was accompanying him he looked at me with suspicion and distrust at that moment I heard a strange sound coming from behind it was my mother she was making noises pretending to be mentally ill she is with me too I said when he got off the bus I understood that the people inside knew my relatives weren't deaf-mute but surprisingly they didn't say anything but even if someone agrees to harbor North Korean refugees for a while this doesn't go on for a long period of time the North Korean special services have created a special divisions that is engaged specifically in searching China for escapees who can endanger the state security for example imagine if a former intelligence officer escaped from North Korea to China the special services understand that this person possesses a huge amount of interesting information that can actually threaten the security of the North Korean states a whole new division was established and its sole task lies in tracking down these people it's all done unofficially as you can understand such work is carried out by their special agents they take advantage of the local community bribe its inhabitants the information on the targets things like that and then they just kidnap people without any official regulations they just quietly snatch them away in the dead of night and that is where hell breaks loose so after moving to China the refugees try to leave for any other country as quickly as possible it can be Lao or Vietnam and after that they contact the South Korean embassy theoretically they can escape to Russia but nobody does it today for one simple reason Moscow and Pyongyang are good friends so whichever escapees will be found will be sent back as soon as they're caught there was one person who was out of his mind such things have it was clear that he escaped we were trying to catch him everywhere yes he was a bit sick in the head yes yes he got sent back to North Korea so no even when they were going through difficult times when there were floods or famine we were ready for refugees we were ready for refugees but there have been no refugees here at all many people asked questions about what would happen to me in case the North Koreans understood what I'd been doing all along it's difficult to say on the one hand I did not violate any laws and I kept my nose out of other people's business but then again I also expressed my own opinion which is highly unlikely to coincide with the opinion of the North Korean state leadership by contrast our fishermen were legitimately fishing in the neutral zone and yet the Koreans still detained them could find them to their cabins for about a week while also confiscating their phones all of that even though they did not break any laws the scariest moment was when I saw a couple of Russian journalists appear nearby I put on women's glasses tried to hide behind a crowd of Chinese tourists and perhaps for the first time in my life began to pray before leaving North Korea I really took every possible precaution to prevent them from discovering any of the footage I took dealing with international customs it's mandatory just as in any international airport the Pyongyang Airport is huge in fact this is a full-fledged International Airport it offers flights to China and Russia the North Koreans take very good care of the first impression the country makes on its visitors and it is also interesting that once your plane lands you can immediately see beautiful apartment buildings in fact this is the only residential area visible from the airport during the landing they gave me a ticket for the flight attendants seat but later made me change my seat what about security measures never minds they stuffed everything that didn't fit in the overhead storage in front of the emergency exit this is what North Korean planes look like this airplane is often called the world's only no star airline the windows are covered by curtains it shakes like hell this is what the bathroom looks like [Music] the window in this bathroom is located at the top here you can see the toilet and the toilet paper they have napkins too it also says they have drinking water but this is not true here's a socket for razors and here is a button to call the flight attendant in case of emergency for lunch we had to sausage sandwiches which tasted like they were made of soy dog meats I didn't make any jokes criticism or even dare think about the great leaders until I'd landed in Russia upon our arrival in Russia the inspection by the Russian security forces wasn't half as thorough as the one on the North Korean side I was just granted entry back into Russia I'm finally back in Russia I just have no words how nice how simple this is truly cathartic visiting North Korea left me constantly turning around to see if anyone was behind me that place was a nightmare what is the most difficult to put up with there is this heart-rending feeling which weighs really heavily on you is knowing that you are under constant surveillance when I say constant I mean it even if you just take your smartphone into your hands without making any kind of video just maybe to write down your thoughts if you saw something interesting and write it down then you look around to think somebody will see me writing something down and then they will come to me with questions can you give us your phone why are you writing this down what were you recording how and why this is unbelievably difficult to live with maybe it is just that I'm such a freedom-loving person so I guess if I have to draw some kind of general conclusion here's what I have to say I found myself surprised to find out that North Koreans are indeed such a hard-working people I think you can imagine a person sitting on the highway then try to imagine a long tedious Li long giant highway and then imagine that there is a man with a sickle carefully uprooting every single blade of grass piercing out between the cracks there are truly extremely hard-working people there's no doubt about that but this Iron Curtain of theirs in my opinion is blocking their progress what I mean is if only they had access to resources from other countries to various technologies if they would exchange with others in build up competition at least and if they let other people into their country the progress they could achieve would be unparalleled they aren't like us they aren't lazy but they're shackled by all the prohibitions like you can't do it here or not like this smile now or stop smiling now and others all of it just kind of kills any personality leaving nothing human in you it is very hard and I'm very happy to be back in Russia the luggage of everyone entering Russia from North Korea is inspected by a dog in case they have anything forbidden in their bags folks the next trip will be a crazy experiment to be honest I don't know if I'll even do it I don't know the route where I'll spend the night or what I'm going to eat I'm not saying where my destination is right now but I will tell you that it is more than a thousand miles across deserts forests and so on I hope I make it back and tell you about how people live there I'm the autumn thank you for watching my video if you like what you see please subscribe to this channel and follow me on Instagram [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The People

Views: 4,650,395

Rating: 4.8594837 out of 5

Keywords: north korea, escape north korea, episode 2, north korea documentary, documentary, how people live, north korea life, live in north korea, travel north korea, north korea tour, north korea vlog, china, kim jong un, kim jong il, kim il sung, travel, south korea, united states, tours, anton lyadov, lyadov, the people, travel korea, visit korea, north korea travel, korean people, north korea tourist, north korea pyongyang, life in north korea, inside north korea, interview, people

Id: aMWi4XlNlwE

Length: 49min 35sec (2975 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/markmywords1347]

Wow. Crazy good. Insightful.

Still would not go as I’m sure I’m stupid enough to get my self arrested. But this is a good inside look.

[u/glogangvault]

The is a great video, the first one is even better, this Russian guy made a better documentary on North Korea then big news companies did.

[u/Mario_Mendoza]

Fascinating video. Thank you.

[u/freiza-]

Saw this yesterday. Easily one of the best documentaries I've ever seen.

[u/realmaniac]

old

[u/wadehoggs]

Anyone who wears a turtle neck that was knitted by dead ghosts. Beware.