Free The Hidden People of North Korea by Ralph Hassig, Kongdan Oh

flight carrying members of Kim’s family back to North Korea. Another time he joined a small group of officials sent to Macao to test a gambling system Kim had developed. He was sometimes sent to Japan to purchase fish and other ingredients for Kim’s meals, and on one of those trips, in 2001, he decided to stay at home. Since returning to Japan, he has written books about his North Korean experiences—and lived in fear of assassination.
    Kim Travels across Russia with a Diplomat
    Few foreigners have had the opportunity to meet with Kim Jong-il on a daily basis over a period of several weeks. One who did was Konstantin Pulikovskiy (Pulikovsky), who accompanied Kim on a trans-Siberian rail journey to Moscow in the summer of 2001 as President Vladimir Putin’s personal envoy. 35 Kim’s train, consisting of five North Korean and seven Russian railcars, crossed into Russia on July 26 and returned on August 18. As Pulikovskiy said, “I had always wanted to cross our vast country by rail at least once in my life, of course, but I never would have chosen to make it a round trip.” Kim Jong-il’s railcars included his private car, a car for meetings, a dining car, and a car that carried two armored limousines. The North Korean staff lived in their own railcar. Among Kim’s entourage was a “charming young woman” who acted as Kim’s assistant, as well as four attractive young women entertainers who danced and sang in Korean and Russian. Koreans addressed Kim as “Great Military Leader” or “Beloved Leader,” bowing deeply when they entered his presence and speaking to him in the third person.
    Kim understood some Russian words and phrases and was always inquisitive, showing considerable interest in how private Russian businesses had developed since the end of state socialism, although he told Pulikovskiy that it would be impossible to run his own country as a market economy because providing for the welfare of so many people in a small country required an authoritarian government.
    The train had a satellite hookup so Kim could keep up with the news, and he was well aware of what the Russian and world press said about him. “The Western media have made up so many stories about me. … I am the target of criticism throughout the world. This is what I think, however: As long as people are talking about me, I must be doing something right.”
    Dinners on the train consisted of fifteen to twenty dishes prepared by Kim’s chefs, although, like Fujimoto, Pulikovskiy reported that Kim ate only a small portion of each dish. Kim revealed his keen interest in food by discussing the next day’s menu with his Russian host. Four times during the journey, the North Koreans flew in a plane-load of fresh food and flew back the garbage. Kim also had French Bordeaux and Burgundy flown in from Paris, thus belying the claim made by the North Korean press that “the whole world knows that his state visits to foreign countries are not as luxurious and comfortable as those made by foreign presidents, and that they are partisan-style, field operation-style.” 36
    The daily conversations between Kim and Pulikovskiy ranged over many topics, with Kim easily switching from one to another. On the subject of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s recent trip to Pyongyang, Kim said, “I believe that she found my character to her liking.” On the subject of his 2000 summit meeting with South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, Kim Jong-il said that he only understood about 80 percent of what his counterpart said because of their different dialects. In a discussion of drug use in Russia (North Korea also has a serious drug problem), Kim said he had ordered drug dealers and users in North Korea to be shot, and he told Pulikovskiy that if he came across any Korean drug addicts, he had Kim’s permission to shoot them as well.
    Security for Kim was tight. The train was protected by a contingent of fifty Russian security guards and about two dozen