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When outdoors intelligence officers search proof of North Korea’s chief, Kim Jong-un, leaving on a visit overseas — like his journey to Russia this week to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin — they all the time search for the whereabouts of a practice painted a colorless inexperienced.
One such practice was noticed on Monday heading north, close to the place the borders of North Korea, Russia and China meet. It was transferring within the route of Vladivostok, the place Mr. Putin is attending an financial discussion board. On Tuesday, North Korean state media confirmed that Mr. Kim had certainly left Pyongyang, the North’s capital, for Russia by practice.
The inexperienced practice officers search for is the particular bulletproof one which Mr. Kim — and his father and grandfather, who dominated North Korea earlier than him — have used to go to China, Russia or the previous Soviet Union. Members of the family had been stated to lack confidence that they might make a protected long-distance journey utilizing one in every of their nation’s decrepit fleet of previous Soviet-era passenger jets.
Whereas a lot about Mr. Kim’s newest journey stays a thriller, here’s what we all know concerning the practice:
Extra highly effective than a rushing bullet, however a lot slower
A lot of what’s identified concerning the practice comes from intelligence reviews, recollections of officers permitted to journey on board in earlier eras and uncommon state information media footage.
There are believed to be at the least 90 high-security carriages on the chief’s disposal, based on a 2009 South Korea news report that relied on labeled data. In keeping with the report, written through the period of Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, three trains function every time the chief travels: an advance safety practice, the chief’s practice and a 3rd carrying further bodyguards and provides.
Every of the carriages is bulletproof, making them hundreds of kilos heavier than common. That further weight interprets to a gradual experience. The trains are estimated to achieve a most pace of simply 37 miles per hour.
In Kim Jong-il’s time, based on the 2009 report, 100 safety officers traveled within the advance practice, looking stations for bombs and different threats and testing the protection of the monitor. Moreover, army helicopters and airplanes would fly overhead to supply extra safety.
Twenty practice stations have been constructed throughout North Korea only for the chief’s private use, based on the report.
All of the comforts of dwelling
North Korea’s state information media often coated the leaders from contained in the practice, providing a uncommon glimpse at a number of the many specialised vehicles.
When Kim Jong-un made his first state go to to China in 2018, he met a senior Chinese language official who boarded his practice in a carriage lined with thick pink sofas.
In 2015, Kim Jong-un was seen seated at a protracted white desk in what seemed to be a convention room. In a similar video from 2011, his father, Kim Jong-il, is seen holding courtroom in the identical compartment. Within the older video, a flat-screen tv is clearly seen, and within the newer one, a laptop computer laptop could be seen.
In footage of the elder Mr. Kim’s journeys, the chief is seen in an audience car with plush seats; main a gathering in a dining car; and attending a banquet in a automotive paneled in darkish wooden. In that footage, Mr. Kim is seated at a desk full of meals as entertainers carry out in tuxedos and night robes.
The previous chief’s workplace automotive, together with a desk and laptop, is preserved as a museum exhibit on the Kumsusan Palace of the Solar, Kim Jong-il’s mausoleum in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.
Lobster, wine and ‘girl conductors’
Kim Jong-il was rumored to have had a worry of flying and most well-liked to journey on his practice, which was outfitted with trendy communications expertise and a big employees that catered to his whims.
“It was attainable to order any dish of Russian, Chinese language, Korean, Japanese and French delicacies,” wrote Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian official who traveled with the previous chief throughout a 2011 journey by Russia.
Mr. Kim insisted that stay lobster and different contemporary delicacies be delivered to the practice because it crossed Siberia on journeys to Russia. Circumstances of Bordeaux and Burgundy wines had been flown in from Paris, Mr. Pulikovsky recounted in his memoir of the journey, “Orient Specific.”
When bored, Mr. Kim relied on a gaggle of feminine entertainers referred to as girl conductors to serenade him in Korean and Russian.
It’s unknown what his son, Kim Jong-un, does for nourishment and leisure whereas on board, however the youthful Mr. Kim’s urge for food is thought to rival his father’s. He reportedly prefers Swiss cheese, Cristal Champagne and Hennessy cognac.
Tragedies on the tracks
The practice has been on the middle of a number of tragic occasions in trendy North Korean historical past.
Greater than 160 folks had been killed in Ryongchon, close to the Chinese language border, in April 2004, when trains laden with flamable materials exploded due to a collision or {an electrical} malfunction.
There have been preliminary rumors that the explosion was a part of an try on Kim Jong-il’s life as a result of the chief’s practice had handed by the city hours earlier.
In keeping with the state information media, he would later die aboard his practice after a coronary heart assault in December 2011.
After he turned chief, Kim Jong-un visited China 4 instances and Vietnam as soon as — all by practice. He additionally visited Russia by practice and met Mr. Putin in 2019.
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