AN ABANDONED hotel that's been under construction since 1987 could soon have a new lease on life. Dominating the Pyongyang skyline, the empty £1.6 billion Ryugyong Hotel is set to be turned into a mega casino.
Dictator Kim Jong-un is now looking for foreign cash to finish the project dubbed the "Hotel of Doom", 37 years since the construction began. The North Korean government will offer the rights to open a casino in the skyscraper in the capital Pyongyang to a firm that can stump up the cash. The 105-floor Ryugyong Hotel is 1,080 feet and is the tallest building in North Korea and the most iconic structure in Pyongyang’s skyline.
The empty hotel was supposed to open in 1992, however the collapse of the Soviet Union ended the steady stream of aid from Moscow, and the North Korean economy entered a period of crisis that culminated in the 1994-1998 famine. External construction was completed in 2011 and the Ryugyong was supposed to open partially in 2013, but those plans fell through. Though it remains vacant, LEDs have been installed on one side of the building’s facade, converting it into one of the world’s largest displays.
Although it reached its full architectural height, the interior of the pyramid-shaped structure was never completed. It was designed to house at least 3,000 rooms, but the bare concrete skeleton remained windowless and empty for another 16 years. Battered by the elements for nearly two decades, it is believed that the building was weakened, while the lift shafts were left "crooked".
It’s currently used to show propaganda signage, visible from much of the city at nighttime. A resident told news outlet Radio Free Asia: "A plan to install a casino at the Ryugyong Hotel has been reviewed. "The plan is to try to attract foreign investment.
" According to the anonymous resident, the review came after Kim Jong Un ordered the government to take practical measures to promote tourism. They said: "The authority to determine the location of the casino to be installed at the hotel and the right to operate the casino will be granted to a foreign entrepreneur who invests in the cost of internal construction. "This project was approved by the Central Committee after reviewing and discussing the profitability of the casino installed at the Yanggakdo Hotel, also in Pyongyang.
” A resident from the northwestern province of North Pyongang told RFA: "Casinos in North Korea are very profitable for the government, as they siphon away foreign currency from international tourists." The Yanggakdo is North Korea’s first luxury hotel, opened in 1996. It is known as the site of the 2016 Otto Warmbier banner-stealing incident that led to the U.
S. citizen’s detention and eventual conviction and 15-year prison term. Warmbier was repatriated in a vegetative state in June 2017 and died shortly afterward.
Currently the country has two casinos, one at the Yanggakdo in Pyongyang and the Bipa Hotel in the Rason Special Economic Zone in the northeast near the border with China and Russia. The North Korean regime will tout the investment opportunity at a Chinese government-sponsored product exhibition event, involving North Korea, China, Russia and Mongolia..
