North Korea's Benidorm-Style Resort Opens To Russians, Features Aquatic Park, Theatre

Last Updated:July 12, 2025, 19:28 IST

North Korea's Wonsan Kalma resort, welcomed its first Russian tourists despite criticism over worker treatment. It aims to boost the economy and ties with Russia.

Representative Image (Pexels)

A luxury beach resort in North Korea, despite facing criticism from human rights groups over the harsh treatment of construction workers, has received its first group of Russian tourists this week.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un last month inaugurated the Wonsan Kalma resort in a grand ceremony, touting it as a “world-class tourist and cultural destination".

The details of how this resort was built have been shrouded in secrecy in a country largely closed to the outside world.

According to the BBC, it has investigated the Wonsan Kalma resort’s development, analysing satellite images, reviewing internal planning documents, and consulting experts and former North Korean insiders, who raised concerns about alleged human rights abuses.

In recent years, North Korea has been largely closed to foreign visitors, allowing only a handful of highly controlled tours into the country.

Wonsan Kalma is seen not only as playing an important role in reviving the sanctioned country’s ailing economic fortunes, but also as a means of strengthening its ties with Russia, which have grown closer following Pyongyang’s military support for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Kim Jong Un spent much of his youth in Wonsan, and before the building of the new resort, the town was a popular holiday destination for the country’s elite.

Ri Jong Ho, a senior North Korean economic official involved in the resort’s early planning stages and who defected in 2014, said, “When the Wonsan tourist area was initially planned… the idea was to attract around one million tourists to the area while keeping it a closed-off zone. The intention was to open North Korea up a bit."

In 2017, a year before construction started, Kim Jong Un sent a delegation on a fact-finding mission to Spain, where they visited the Benidorm resort for inspiration.

The North Korean delegation “included high-ranking politicians and many architects who took lots of notes," recalls Matias Perez Such, a member of the Spanish team that hosted the delegation on a tour including a theme park, high-rise hotels and a marina.

A North Korean brochure features a map of the resort, showcasing 43 hotels along the beachfront, guesthouses by an artificial lake, and campsites.

We’ve matched these locations with high-resolution satellite imagery, although we are unable to verify whether they have been completed, BBC reported.

An aquatic park, complete with towering yellow water slides, is set back from the beach.

The resort’s entertainment quarter, located further north, features a theatre, recreation and fitness centres, and a cinema, as outlined in the plan.

Satellite images taken over 18 months, starting from early 2018, show dozens of buildings emerging along the 4km coastline. According to SI Analytics, a South Korea-based satellite imagery firm, around 80% of the resort was completed by the end of 2018. However, after this rapid construction phase, work on the site appears to have stalled.

Construction resumed after a June 2024 meeting between Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin, where the Russian president expressed support for Russian citizens visiting North Korea’s resorts, including this one.

Location :

North Korea

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News world North Korea's Benidorm-Style Resort Opens To Russians, Features Aquatic Park, Theatre