Five Years: Efflorescence of Pyongyang Culture (2)
The current flourish of Pyongyang culture is by no means limited to the capital city. Not only the capital but also all other parts of the country have changed beyond recognition. This is what has happened in the country over the past five years.
Regions Following Suit
Photos of General Secretary Kim Jong Un going round the completed Ragwon County Offshore Farm and the modern fishermen’s houses in late August went viral. Netizens were unanimous in their description of the farm and village as a “paradise.”
According to local media, reiterating the long-term goals of the policy of the Workers’ Party of Korea on regional development that time, Kim Jong Un said that the epochal tasks of regional rejuvenation to be welcomed by the people would be successfully fulfilled only when all the regional builders make redoubled efforts with the ambition and courage to learn from and overtake the architectural culture and new civilization of the capital which have been put on an unusually high level through the construction of modern 50 000 flats.
At the Fourth Plenary Meeting of the Eighth Central Committee of the WPK in late December 2021, he unveiled a new programme for rural revolution and put forward a long-term plan for turning all rural villages across the country into ideal socialist villages, rich and cultured, in the near future.
He clarified all the issues concerning the construction of rural houses and went over thousands of designs for them.
As a result, as many as 80 000 houses have sprung up in over 1 500 villages over the three years since the new programme for rural revolution was set forth, followed by house moving ceremonies. Still under construction are many others in different parts of the country. The number of them exceeded 20 000 as of February in 2025.
Farmers say in unison that their new houses are as good as those in Kyongru-dong, a residential district famous for luxury flats in Pyongyang.
New rural houses in mountainous areas suit the regional characteristics while those in coastal areas are aligned with the seaside features. What stands out in this construction is constant innovation.
To take an example, looking round the modern fishermen’s residential district of Ragwonpho that surpasses the level of all the rural houses built so far, Kim Jong Un said even though the production buildings and dwelling houses built here are excellent, wonderful monumental entities that surpass them should be constructed in the future.
