Day 8 - b) Pyongyang Metro (subway)

Saturday September 11, 2010

Almost every visit to Pyongyang includes a ride on the metro, and our tour was no exception. Stations are not named after geographical locations but have a revolutionary word assigned as their moniker. All foreign tourists are taken to the Revitalisation station and ride for just one stop, alighting at Glory station.

Pyongyang metro system electronic guide: Pressing one of the destination buttons (bottom) lights up a route on the map.

Like all other socialist countries the Pyongyang metro stations have been elaborately decorated with mosaics, murals, and fancy lighting. Although considering that foreigners are only allowed to see two specific stations one wonders what the other locations are like.

Glory metro station.

The subway is the deepest in the world - 110m underground, which provides for a very long escalator ride from street level. This is intentional so that the underground system can act a bomb shelter in an emergency.

There were plenty of locals using the trains while we visited. Curiously in a city where everything is meticulously ordered and cleaned the windows of the carriages had foreign graffiti scratched into it - the carriages were imported second hand from former Soviet nations.

The very long escalators at Glory station.