Kumsusan Memorial Palace

Kumsusan Memorial Palace
The official residence of North Korea's head of state until President Kim Il-sung's death. It has since been transformed into a mausoleum for the deceased ruler and his son, Kim Jong-il.
Korean name
Chosŏn'gŭl	금수산기념궁전
Hancha	錦繡山記念宮殿
McCune–Reischauer	Kŭmsusan Kinyǒm Kungjǒn
Revised Romanization	Geumsusan Ginyeom Kungjeon

Kumsusan Memorial Palace, sometimes referred to as the Kim Il-sung Mausoleum, is a building located near the northeast corner of the city of Pyongyang and serves as the mausoleum for Kim Il-sung, the founder and president of North Korea, and for his son Kim Jong-il who succeeded him as the country's ruler.

The palace was built in 1976 as the Kumsusan Assembly Hall, and served as Kim Il-sung's official residence. Following the elder Kim's death in 1994, Kim Jong-il had the building renovated and transformed into his father's mausoleum. Despite hundreds of thousands starving to death in a famine at the time, it is believed that the conversion cost at least $100m. Some sources put the figure as high as $900m. Inside the palace, Kim Il-sung's embalmed body lies inside a clear glass sarcophagus. His head rests on a Korean-style pillow and he is covered by the flag of the Workers' Party of Korea. Plans are underway for Kim Jong-il, who died in 2011, to be displayed next to his father.

Kumsusan is the largest mausoleum dedicated to a Communist leader, and is fronted by a large square, approximately 500 metres (1,600 ft) in length. It is bordered on its northern and eastern sides by a moat.

Access and rules

Foreign visitors can access the palace only on Thursdays and Sundays. They must be on an official government tour. Photography, videotaping, smoking and talking are not permitted anywhere inside the palace.

Access to the building is via a subway (underpass) from a tram stop across the road. Upon entering the building, visitors then have to leave everything except their wallets behind in a cloak room with a numbered ticket to claim them upon leaving. Visitors proceed along a series of long travelators. Finally they emerge in a long hall with a white stone statue of Kim bathed in soft red light around him. Marble arched columns line the hall. Visitors are told to stop at a yellow line on the floor, and after a few moments of contemplation, beckoned into another room. Here they are given a small speaker device, that plays a narration of the peoples grief when their Great Leader died. The room features bronze like busts of people grieving. Finally, visitors go up in a lift to the top floor in the white and grey marble walled building. They are filed through a dust blowing machine, and enter the room with the Great Leader's preserved remains lying in state. A red rope barrier runs around the crystal sarcophagus. Visitors are sent in groups of four and are told to bow at the Great Leader's feet, to his right, and then left sides.

Mementos

The flag of the Workers' Party of Korea covers Kim Il-sung

Adjoining rooms are filled with some of Kim Il-sung's possessions, as well as gifts and awards he received from around the world. There are no signs or information in Korean here. Awards include a number of degree certificates, one and only one of which is from a Western university, specifically Kensington University in California. Kensington was an unaccredited university, typically considered to be a diploma mill, which, following several years of attempts to close it, was finally dissolved by a Hawaiian court in 2003.

A peace medal from Japan lies next to his "Medal For the Victory Over Japan" awarded to him by the USSR. The room has large paintings and photographs of Kim Il-sung meeting various world leaders during their visits to North Korea and during Kim's trips abroad, such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, Chairman Mao Zedong of China, Nicolae Ceauşescu of Romania, Erich Honecker of East Germany, Gustáv Husák of former Czechoslovakia, Wojciech Jaruzelski of Poland, Todor Zhivkov of Bulgaria, János Kádár of Hungary, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Josip Broz Tito of former Yugoslavia, Houari Boumediene of Algeria, Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania, and Yasser Arafat of Palestine, as well as several former Soviet leaders, including Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, and many others including Che Guevara and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.^{[citation needed]}

Death of Kim Jong-il

Main article: Death and funeral of Kim Jong-il

Following the death of Kim Jong-il in December 2011, his body lay in state at the palace for 10 days. Following this period, on 28 December 2011, the palace served as the start and end point for a 40-kilometre (25 mi) procession lasting 3 hours. The procession marked the first day of a 2-day funeral ceremony.

Reportedly, Russian experts have been brought to the mausoleum to embalm Kim Jong-il's body for permanent display in the manner of his father and other former Communist leaders such as Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Stalin (until 1961).

On January 12, 2012, the North Korean government confirmed that Kim Jong-il's preserved remains will be put on permanent display in the palace and also announced plans to erect a new Kim Jong Il statue and construct "towers to his immortality."

See also

• National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
• Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum
• Lenin's Mausoleum
• Mausoleum of Mao Zedong

References

Bibliography

• Becker, Jasper (2005), Rogue regime: Kim Jong Il and the looming threat of North Korea, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-517044-3 
• Burdick, Eddie (2010), Three Days in the Hermit Kingdom: An American Visits North Korea, McFarland, ISBN 978-0-78-644898-2 
• Hassig, Ralph (2009), The hidden people of North Korea: everyday life in the hermit kingdom, Rowman & Littlefield, ISBN 978-0-74-256718-4 
• Kim, Samuel S (2001), The North Korean system in the Post-Cold War era, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-0-31-223974-9 
• Kongdah, Oh (2000), North Korea through the looking glass, Brookings Institution Press, ISBN 978-0-81-576435-9 
• Willoughby, Robert (2008), The Bradt Travel Guide: North Korea, Bradt Travel Guides, ISBN 978-1-84-162219-4