A ride on the Pyongyang Metro

We got to take a “rush hour” ride on the Pyongyang Metro, that was advertised as allowing us to see “real life” in Pyongyang. It started with us taking the longest escalator I had ever seen into the depths of the city; it was far longer than any of the escalators in Washington D.C. The sheer depth as well as the architecture it was clear that the Metro station was built to serve as a nuclear bomb shelter.

The “real life” aspect, was for once as advertised. We entered a suspiciously empty carriage, and judging from the reactions of the North Koreans, none of them were plants. A slightly bewildered and panicked man stood up to offer us his seat; our tour guide motioned for him to sit back down, but he retreated to the far corner of the carriage. The woman sitting next to me looked genuinely terrified, turning away from the camera when a photo was taken. My guess was that a conductor had emptied most of the carriage out at the previous station, instructing those remaining to stay in their seats and act “normally”.

An interesting sidenote: the German in my group observed that the graffiti on the train windows was in German. The metro trains had likely been imported from East Germany during the Cold War and repainted, but the window glass left untouched.