June 14, 2009

Here's the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea. 105 stories and 3,000 empty rooms. I'm not sure what was stupider. This, or "Elevation Chandler".

After the starving North Koreans (finally) overthrow their leaders, maybe they can turn it into a roller coaster. That drop off is a doozy!

Can you imagine Kim Jong-il strung up from a rope swinging from the top of this?

Kinda looks like the Nikkei chart.

Communists do build some hilarious buildings. But then again, so do Phoenix developers.





10 comments:

Bukko Boomeranger said...

So that's how you say "Dubai" in Korean!

WizardofIB said...

If they don't do a 180 in the next few weeks they can call it "World's Largest Homeless Shelter"...


The Wiz

Andrew from Russia said...

At least North Koreans were the first in, and the first out of the construction mania back in 1989! Pyongyang leads, Dubai lags.
When/if the Communist regime is toppled, I'm sure there won't be any "investment properties" in Pyongyang. With this "hotel" project they are inoculated against the real-estate madness for decades to come.

Saul said...

It is a great monument to failure.

Anonymous said...

I kinda like it, but it does look like a stock market chart.

Anonymous said...

Looks like the Nikkei chart and the DOW.

Guberville Smack said...

Looks like a rocket ship drawn by a 5th grader.

Anonymous said...

Looks like a perfect place for the next Star Trek convention.

blogger said...

What I don't get is who exactly did they think was gonna stay at this massive hotel?

Tourists?

Uh, one problem with that. They don't let any in.

Communists are idiots, first and foremost. Always have been, always will be.

Andrew from Russia said...


What I don't get is who exactly did they think was gonna stay at this massive hotel?
Tourists?
Uh, one problem with that. They don't let any in.


Rational capitalist logic will hamper your attempts at solving that riddle. :) Boondoggles like that don't happen when one plans for a certain ROI, employs their own scarce capital and has to face risks (perhaps the similarity with a stock-market bubble chart or an Arizonian condo is not coincidental, as "earnings don't matter", easy credit and "new paradigm" take over rational thought).
The proper answer IMHO is that the building was conceived as a monument to the triumph (failure?) of the Juche Idea, fulfilling a purely ancillary function of a hotel. A bureaucrat's whim could as well have turned it into a government, university or residential building. Its actual occupancy and costs/profitability were as unimportant as ever.

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