Vienna-Pyongyang

There are no good sources for what your average North Korean's life is currently like. There are a handful of famous accounts from a few of those who escaped the country and they're obviously pretty grim (particularly those describing prison camp life) but the stereotype of this primitive country, which is backwards both ideologically and technologically. I'm not an idiot, I don't believe there's a little hidden Wakanda going on there. But we can at least observe that if they're able to hack that quantity of crypto there is some kind of tech operation going on there, however small it might be. So they're not entirely shut off and they're able to penetrate at least a bunch of western crypto-startups.

If you're motivated, don't mind a very on-rails, restricted and relatively pricey tour, you can actually visit yourself: https://koryogroup.com - I've wanted to for a while, but I've spent less money to travel in other interesting places with fewer restrictions for longer, so it's hard to justify the expense.

An interesting read you might like is by a couple of Austrian guys who decided to hop on a train there, confusing and irritating border officials who didn't expect an invasion from the northern direction :) http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com

Probably the most accessible and interesting thing though, is a podcast series called "Blowback" (it's Season 3, the previous two were on the Cuban revolution and the Iraq war). Now obviously this isn't the current day but it…

A 2008 trip from Vienna to Pyongyang: http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/

This featured, for part of the way, a ride in the North Korean sleeper car from Moscow to Pyongyang, as far as I know still the world's longest single continuous rail trip without changing trains.

Something like this could pretty well never be done again, though. The Khasan-Tumangang border crossing is really only open to North Koreans and Russians, and they managed to get in only on the technicality that Tumangang was listed on their visas as a valid port of entry. They were lucky they didn't end up in a North Korean jail - or a Russian one.

A couple rail fans booked a train from Vienna to Pyongyang in 2008.

Their travelogue is fascinating although it can take some effort to wade through the train-schedule minutia and whatnot if you're not into that but well worth it for the uncensored images.

"The forbidden railway: Vienna - Pyongyang 윈 - 모스크바 - 두만강 - 평양
36 hours in North Korea without a guide..."

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/

EDIT: Direct link to skip the European and Russian part of the trip and go directly to crossing the border:

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/09/irkutsk-skovorodino.html

My favorite N. Korea travelogue is this fellow's, done by train:
http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/

He's a train hobbyist, a touch obsessed with timetables. He noticed that Moscow-Pyongyang routes were hypothetically opened. He secured a travel visa through the normal routes, and as it turned out, his visa was valid for any entrance to N. Korea.

As a result, he entered the DPRK through the Russian border. He was able to walk around in normal N. Korean train stations and talk to the locals, without any government guides or monitors.

Also Deutsch Welle's english documentary channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW39zufHfsuGgpLviKh297Q

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com hacked the border crossing, but that hole has almost certainly been secured since.

I've found a propaganda site which purports to be DPRK and is unabashedly old-style second world:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23738281

(Incidentally, YIL St. Benedict out Marx'ed Marx: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24588118 footnote 2)

some more links from the same author

The start of our trip with the North Korean train (still inside Russia):

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/09/irkutsk-skovorodino.html

Approaching the border between Russia and North Korea (the last kilometers inside Russia):

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/09/khabarovsk-khasan-border-russiadprk.html

Inside North Korea:

http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/2008/09/tumangan-north-korean-border-station.html