There’s no business like snow business at North Korea's ski resort where a day pass costs a month’s salary
Resort executives say it sees 70,000 visitors a year. Aside from the nursery slopes, it is deserted
On the ski fields of Mount Taehwa, groomed pistes snake down wooded hillsides to a luxurious hotel and a giant screen showing a North Korean army choir. But the runs are empty.
Work began on Masikryong ski resort, the only one in the North and the brainchild of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, after Pyeongchang in the neighbouring South was awarded the 2018 winter Olympics.
The impoverished, nuclear-armed nation has ramshackle infrastructure and around 40 per cent of its people are undernourished, according to the Global Hunger Index.
But the luxurious resort boasts a wood-panelled reception and statues of winter sports athletes.
Outside a large stone tablet proclaims: “The work of Dear Leader Kim Jong-un who devoted hard work and heart and soul to make our people the happiest and most civilised people.”
At a visitor centre packed with pictures of Kim - including one of him using a chairlift, although without skis - guides credit him with giving on-the-spot guidance no fewer than 144 times over the course of construction.