Seoul (AFP) – North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un praised soldiers and builders for setting up “numerous monumental structures” including the Masik Pass Ski Resort in a short period. State media said the ski resort opened on Tuesday and Kim visited to mark its completion, taking a ride on a ski lift. Thousands of North Korean soldiers had been mobilised to complete it by the end of last year.
Featuring 110 kilometres (70 miles) of multi-level ski runs, a hotel, heliport and cable cars, the resort has been heavily promoted since Kim visited it in June and called for construction to be completed by the end of the year.
“This year, too, the service personnel and people should make concerted efforts to build up Pyongyang so that it is more grandiose,” Kim said.
The young leader has shown a fondness for expensive, high-profile leisure projects in and around the showpiece capital Pyongyang including a massive new water park, an amusement park and a luxury horseback riding club.
Kim in September also watched films at a new “4D” movie theatre built in the newly-renovated Rungna People’s amusement park, state media reported earlier. He was photographed riding a roller coaster in the Rungna amusement park in Pyongyang when it reopened in July 2012 after renovations ordered by Kim.
The resort made headlines in August when Switzerland blocked a $7.6 million sale of ski lifts to Pyongyang, calling it a “propaganda project” for the impoverished Stalinist regime.