Although North Korean media has been continuously highlighting the completion of the Songsin and Songhwa residential zones in eastern Pyongyang, promoting them as one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s major accomplishments, a source told Daily NK that only the homes for cadres have been fully completed.
As for homes for ordinary residents, families must complete the interior work on their own.
Rodong Sinmun reported Wednesday that the construction of 10,000 homes in Songsin and Songhwa represented a “monument to the warm love for the people in the great era of Kim Jong Un.” Stressing Kim’s leadership of “love for the people,” the newspaper wrote that the Eighth Party Congress’s decision to “brilliantly resolve” the capital’s housing shortage was a sublime manifestation of the Central Committee’s absolute and unconditional spirit of public service and concern for the people.
The paper also noted that, “The housing construction in the Songsin and Songhwa areas was a grand campaign of creation beyond imagination in terms of architectural style and content and scale of project as it required completing in just one year more than 160 blocks of skyscraping and high-rising apartments, public buildings and service amenities with a total floor space of one million and hundreds of thousands of square meters in an area covering 56 hectares.”
Essentially, the newspaper promoted the fact that the authorities had completed a massive housing project in just one year thanks to a typical North Korean-style “speed battle.”
However, according to a Daily NK source in North Korea, only two wings built for the exclusive use of cadres and donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More, or North Korea’s wealthy entrepreneurial class, are ready to be occupied. Elsewhere, only the framework and exteriors are completed.
That is, as the builders have left the interiors of most of the homes uncompleted, the scheduled occupants should put the wallpaper and flooring in themselves at their own expense.
In most homes, only the glass window exteriors have been installed, and even the faucets are makeshift so there is no running water. The source said residents would have a tough time moving in immediately.
Scheduled residents are rushing to finish the interior work because they have to move in within three months or lose their occupancy rights.
Initially, North Korean authorities initially gave scheduled residents just a month to move in or lose their occupancy certificates, but they reportedly extended it to three months when scheduled residents complained about the incomplete interiors.
However, the source said as most scheduled residents are far from well off, they are struggling to put together the money to finish the interiors.
Moreover, the authorities are reportedly mobilizing scheduled residents on a daily basis to work on the landscaping. North Korean authorities are emphasizing the importance of landscaping to enliven the exterior of the complex, but locals are reportedly having a difficult time understanding why the landscaping work requires so many hands.
Meanwhile, scheduled occupants are also unnerved that the authorities completed high-rise buildings in just a year.
In fact, the source said with authorities building dozens of highrises in just one year, the people who should move in worry that the buildings have problems. He said residents are even bribing officials to allocate them apartments on the second or third floors.
Scheduled occupants might have complaints, but in the rest of Pyongyang, people are reportedly envious of the residents of nearby Sadong District, along with retired military officers, elderly Korean War veterans, and descendants of independence fighters who have been allocated homes in the new highrises.
In particular, the source said Pyongyang’s residents praise the government’s housing policy of building 50,000 new homes in the capital by 2025, and hope they too will have a chance to move into new homes.
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