As a result of priority being given to the
development of Ryomyong Street (Kim Jong Un’s recently-announced legacy
project) in Pyongyang, construction on a number of new apartment buildings in
provincial areas has ground to a halt. This is particularly true in Hoeryong,
North Hamgyong Province, where a project to erect homes in Yokjon-dong as part
of an idolization campaign for Kim Jong Il’s wife Kim Jong Suk in 2010 is still
far from complete, Daily NK has learned.
“It
has been five years since they tore down the unsightly homes that used to be
around Yokjon-dong, but no further progress has been made to this day,” a
source from North Hamgyong Province told Daily NK on June 28. “The city
clean-up was launched as part of the Kim Jong Suk idolization campaign in 2010,
but in the end, the only real outcome was that some poor residents lost their
homes.”
“The residents were kicked out onto the
streets overnight, and they ended up losing their houses to the whim of the
state,” she said, adding that while there have been rumors that new homes were
to be completed by 2017, “almost no one believes that.”
Additional sources in North Hamgyong Province confirmed this development.
This has led many residents to believe
progress on such projects is only made possible when leader Kim Jong Un
personally takes interest. As the state pushes to complete the Ryomyong project
within one year, questions and complaints of why little has changed in Hoeryong
over the past six years are surfacing.
Instead, the state earlier this year
authorized the Yokjon-dong project to be completed by designated individuals.
Facing the unsavory option of halting an idolization project, which could
rattle the state’s propaganda efforts, it appears that the authorities came up
with a different solution, the source surmised.
“They
need it to be built, but the state can’t do it, so they’ve put wealthy
individuals at the helm of it,” the source explained. “To encourage more people
with money to take part, they even handed down an order permitting project
backers to pocket 50 percent of the funds, provided the other half goes back to
the state.”
Piecemeal construction efforts resumed in
mid-March following an inflow of raw materials and daily labor hires, all under
the purview of members of the donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More (the new monied class).
The state is also using the unfinished
project to make some money on the side by selling partially completed
structures to the donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More, the source explained, noting, “If only the first
floor of a structure has been completed, they sell it for 8,000 RMB (10 mil.
KPW), and the asking price for two floors is 20,000 RMB (26 mil. KPW).”
According to the source, onlookers in the
area watching the progression of these developments are noting an increasingly
true and irrevocable trend in North Korea: the people are propping up the
nation, rather than the other way around.
