Dictator Kim Jong’s luxury bulletproof train, a moving fort

London: North Korean President Kim Jong-un arrived in Russia on Tuesday aboard a bulletproof train to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. The slow-moving luxury train also carries French wines imported from Paris, fresh and live lobsters and a team of dancers and artistes for high-profile passengers, a media report said.

The heavily armored, protected yellow-striped green train, named ‘Taengho’, the Korean word for sun and a symbolic reference to North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung, was traveling at about 50 km/h, the BBC reports. Moves at a speed of. The BBC said Kim Jong-un spent more than 20 hours on the slow-moving train, traveling about 1,180 km.
Kim Jong-un boarded a bulletproof train with key ruling party officials and armed forces on Sunday afternoon, a report by South Korean Yonhap news agency on Tuesday cited North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). Left for Russia from Pyongyang.
KCNA said Kim “left here by train on Sunday afternoon to visit the Russian Federation.” Meanwhile, Russian media outlet “Vesti Primorye”, citing a railway source, also reported that Kim’s train reached the border city of Khasan on Tuesday and is headed towards the far eastern city of Ussuriysk.
According to Russian media reports, the train passed through Khasan station early on Tuesday and is already in the Primorsky Krai region. South Korean daily Chosun Ilbo reported that the armored train had about 90 carriages. It also has conference rooms, audience rooms and bedrooms, as well as being fitted with satellite phones and flat screen televisions for briefings.

The BBC reports that the tradition of traveling long distances by train was started by Kim Jong-un’s grandfather, Kim Il Sung, who used to take his own locomotive on trips to Vietnam and Eastern Europe. The luxurious trains are said to be closely monitored by security agents, who scan the routes and upcoming stations for bombs and other threats.
Kim Jong-un’s father Kim Jong Il, who ruled North Korea from 1994 until his death in 2011, took 10 days to reach Moscow in 2001 to meet with Putin. The BBC reported that Russian military commander Konstantin Pulikovsky, who accompanied the former North Korean leader on the 2001 ride, said in his memoir “Orient Express” that the train served “any dishes of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine. It was possible to order.”
He wrote that live lobsters were transported on trains to ensure the availability of fresh dishes, while cans of red wine from Bordeaux and Burgundy were also brought from Paris. “Even Putin’s personal train did not have the luxury of Kim Jong Il’s train,” he said.
Another former Russian diplomat, Georgy Toloraya, wrote in 2019 about his experience on the same 2001 train trip, describing delicacies considered delicacies such as donkey meat and abalone from Pyongyang. According to North Korea’s state media, Kim Jong Il died of a heart attack while traveling by train in 2011.