The Vostok Intour travel agency is negotiating with North Korean partners to arrange vacations for Russian schoolchildren at the Sondovon camp.
Inna Mukhina, director of the company, told NK News that the first group of more than a dozen children, accompanied by two adults, will arrive in North Korea in mid-July. The children will stay at the Sondovon camp, located near the port city of Wonsan on the east coast. The camp features an amusement park, water rides, a beach, a room with video games, and air hockey tables.
The trip will last two weeks and include a vacation at Sondovon and visits to Pyongyang's landmarks, with accommodation in a "Soviet-style" hotel.
A Russian who visited Sondovon twice in 2015-2016 reported that the stay involved strict restrictions on movement and daily propaganda activities. Children were required to sing songs in honor of Korean leaders, clean their monuments, and watch a cartoon depicting the bombing of the US White House.
According to this Russian visitor, the food at both the hotel and the camp consisted mainly of small pieces of chicken, with other meats rarely available, and sometimes squid with rice and muffin buns. The North Koreans also sold rice vodka and cigarettes to the schoolchildren.
The last visits of Russian children to the camp occurred before the pandemic. After the full-scale invasion began, Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of Primorsky Krai, proposed resuming such trips, but the initiative did not gain widespread support.
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