The Ryugyong Hotel is the tallest building in North Korea at 330 meters. It is located in the heart of Pyongyang. The metropolis is full of pretentious, showy monuments and buildings.
This pyramid overshadows it all. Literally. You can still see the building from several kilometers away.
It was meant to become the tallest hotel in the world and a flagship of the country. Construction started over 30 years ago. Just a few years later, a rough framework was in place.
Nevertheless, the hotel has not hosted a single guest to this day. The entire building has been empty. .
. for decades. Why?
What does it look like from the inside? And will anyone ever be able to stay there? We will take you to the so-called "Hotel of Doom".
North Korea has a strictly controlled media environment, making it hard to get reliable information. For Example when a US soldier crossed into North Korea three months ago, everyone was in the dark. North Korea claimed the soldier was seeking refuge from mistreatment in the US.
But is that really what happened? A perfect case for today's sponsor Ground News is a website and app that gathers news sources from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage. 278 sources reported on this.
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Left-leaning sources focus on how North Korea might use this for diplomatic gains. Right coverage highlights the soldier's issues with the U. S.
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North Korea is one of the most isolated countries in the world The totalitarian regime hardly ever allows real glimpses into life in the dictatorship. But how North Korea appears to the outside world is extremely important to the country. The government built numerous prestigious monuments in the capital Pyongyang.
Magnificent skyscrapers and impressive statues are meant to prove how modern rich and stable the country is. In order to understand the Ryugyong Hotel, we need to take a brief look at the history of the country. Until 1945, "Korea" is a Japanese colony.
This changes with the capitulation of Japan in the Second World War. Korea is divided between the victorious powers into two occupation zones. The south is occupied by the USA, the north by the Soviet Union.
As a result, South Korea ultimately develops into a democracy and opens up to the world. North Korea becomes a totalitarian state, under the flag of communism. The two countries become enemies.
The conflict culminates in the Korean War in 1950. It lasts for 3 years and claims over 4 million lives. This war cements the division of Korea.
Since then, this line at the 38th parallel has separated the citizens of the peninsula. There may have been a ceasefire since the end of the war, but there are still violent incidents from time to time. The relationship remains frosty.
Let's jump ahead a few decades. South and North Korea are still arch-enemies. In 1986, a South Korean company builds a hotel in Singapore.
It is the tallest hotel in the world at the time. Two years later, South Korea hosts the Olympics - insane prestige for a country. The North Korean dictator at the time, Kim Il-sung (leader 1949-1994), doesn’t like these developments at all.
So the regime strikes back. In 1989, North Korea hosts the World Festival of Youth and Students. 1 More than 10,000 people from 177 countries visit the capital.
In the run-up, the country is spending $4 billion to glam up Pyongyang for its visitors. The money is used to build new roads and stadiums. And there are plans for a new hotel.
It is intended to surpass that of the South Koreans by 104 meters. The highest hotel in the world would from now on be in North Korea. For comparison: It would be a good deal higher than the Eiffel Tower.
The plans for the Ryugyong Hotel are unique. The building is designed to have three wings, each inclined at an angle of 75 degrees, converging towards a cone at the top. The shape is reminiscent of a pyramid, a mountain, or perhaps even a rocket.
Around 3,000 rooms are spread over 105 floors. In total, the hotel has 360,000 square meters of usable space. It will also house a bowling alley and a nightclub.
At the pinnacle of the hotel, at the very top of the cone, there is space for five restaurants. To really enjoy the 360° panorama, this part will even be able to rotate. So in 1987, North Korea begins to build the hotel.
Two years later - just in time for the World Festival - it is to be ceremoniously opened. Floor after floor of the 105 stories are built. The building shell climbs higher and higher.
But it soon becomes clear that an opening just two years after the start of construction was a bit too ambitious. The international guests are put in other hotels instead. The date for the opening is postponed to 1992.
But in 1991, the Soviet Union collapses. The Cold War is over. With the end of the USSR, North Korea loses its most important backer and supporter.
A year later, the hotel has reached its 330-meter height. It now towers over everything in its vicinity. But it is far from finished.
The ceremonial opening never takes place. At that time, construction had already cost around 750 million US dollars. North Korea lacks the money to continue.
In 1993, work is stopped completely. And for a long, long time. The once prestigious project becomes the nation's eyesore.
The hotel doesn't even have windows. Only the gray shell remains. A gloomy concrete colossus.
On the roof, an abandoned crane rusts away for years. Meanwhile, the North Korean population suffers from dire poverty. At the same time, the country is plunging into a severe economic crisis.
A massive famine breaks out. Supply shortages, power outages, no health care. Kim Jong-il is now the country's new dictator.
He doesn't want to show any weakness to the outside world. In many cases, he refuses urgently needed humanitarian aid for political reasons. Around the same time, the Ryugyong Hotel suddenly disappears from official photographs.
The regime has pictures of Pyongyang partially edited before they are published. The miserable condition of the site, emblematic of the country's decline, is erased. Almost 15 years after construction was halted, things are suddenly moving forward.
The Egyptian telecommunications group Orascom is tasked to finally complete the hotel's window and facade construction as part of a larger deal. In 2011, Kim Jong-il dies. His son Kim Jong-un comes to power.
In the same year, work on the hotel is completed. The German luxury hotel group Kempinski announces that it will create 150 hotel rooms in the upper part of the building The long-awaited opening of the prestigious building is finally within reach but it is in vain. In 2013, Kempinski cancels the project due to heightened political tensions between North Korea and the West.
To this day, the hotel has never been opened. No one is allowed to enter the building. Not a single guest has ever stayed in one of the countless planned rooms.
It now carries the nickname "Hotel of Doom". Even the most beautiful facade cannot distract from the fact that the walls inside are beginning to crumble. Experts suggest that the hotel's construction isn't really solid.
The huge mass of concrete lacks a supporting steel structure. In 2014, a similar concrete-only skyscraper collapsed in Pyongyang. Instead of good hotels, North Korea remains known for nuclear weapons testing, its action movies, and oppressed people in poverty.
Since 2018, the building is being used for propaganda. Thousands of LEDs are installed on the facade. On the screens, 4-minute videos run in a loop.
They show the history of North Korea and contain political slogans. At the top, a giant North Korean flag glows over the metropolis. Over time, a landmark of supposed strength, prosperity and power has become a signal of North Korea's megalomania and the failure of its totalitarian dictatorship.
If you look behind the facade, you see the bitter reality.
