North Korea (DPRK) - Nampkho
- the Dam. (Translated by Natalia)
The Nampkho city is situated 55 km far to the west from
Pyongyang.
Also in these places there're some of the largest enterprises of Northern
Korea - steel-smelting, machine-building.
As I written before, some roads in Korea (main roads
and also avenues in the capital) have a huge width.
The one more thing is - that here, just like in
Russia, it's allowed to stand at the roadside, to sell mushrooms and
berries. Although officially it's forbidden. But, anyway…
The interesting fact - in Russia the local rivers usually have their
names and the bridges have not. But here is the opposite situation.
There's a name of bridge aon the stone and also a date when it was built
(1974). And the river is nameless.
Actually, not a capital bus. The back wheels seems to be taken from a
lorry :)
This is not the rice, it's the evaporation of salt process.
Driving up to Nampkho.
It's not seen very well, but you can believe me, that there're lots of
TV aerials on the roofs of the buildings.
I think, that in old
buildings the collective TV aerials were not foreseed, so the
inhabitants had to solve this problem by theirselves.
Talking about TV broadcasting, it's needed to say that usually only 1-2
channels are available. The repertoire is modest: local films, Chinese
or soviet movies. The news are regular. It's curious, that there're no
video subjects in the news. Usually the announcer reads something or the
static photos are shown.
People carries different things, useful in household.
I've seen in
Pyongyang the man, who carried a refrigerator (!) on the bike!
Vertically! It has really impressed me! :)
The dam, 15 km far from Nampkho.
Built in 1981-1986.
The length - 8 km, also 3 sluises.
At the right - the Western Sea of Korea (the Yellow sea). At the left
- the spread river Taedong (the same that flows through Pyongyang).
Actually, the dam also solves the problem of drinking water - as I
understand, earlier the salt water from the sea mixed here with the
fresh river water.
The general dam view. Makes a strong impression!
I always wanted to compare this dam with our undone Kronstadt dam. I see
it almost every week - without any changes.
But it's not fair, because
the dam in Nampkho is a main dam in the country, and the Kronstadt dam
is local.
In the centre of the dam - a green island with an observant tower and a
guest hall. There we've watched a film about building of a dam. It's
style was very similar to soviet films about BAM building.
At the wall - a picture with the general view of a dam.
The way back…
The shed in the foreground - is the pump of irrigating
system.