North Korean sleeping car Moscow - Pyongyang

On my trip to Siberia in december 2006 I decided not to travel in an ordinary Russian sleeping car, but in the sleeping car Moskva - Pyongyang, which is leaving Moskva on the 11th and 25th of each month (attached to train no. 1 (Moskva - Vladivistok)). This sleeping car is provided by the state railways of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). The trip was an interesting possibility to talk with people from North Korea, for whom it was quite sensational to have an Austrian citizen as fellow passenger (all the other passengers as well as the conductors in the sleeping car were DPRK citizen).
Using the sleeping car for domestic trips inside Russia is officially not possible, a ticket for a cross-border trip to DPRK is necessary. But it is no problem to get a ticket to the first station in the DPRK (Tumangan) and get off before the border.

My tickets for this trip:
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/ru/ticket%2Btimetable/20061225_Buchfahrk_Mos... (ticket cover)
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/sk/ticket/20061020_CST_DevinskaNovaVes_Ussur... (ticket from Devinska Nova Ves (in Slovakia) to Ussuriysk)
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/ru/ticket%2Btimetable/20061225_FK_Ussuriisk_... (ticket Ussuriysk - Tumangan)
http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/ru/ticket%2Btimetable/20061225_RES_Moskva_Tu... (sleeper reservation Moscow - Tumangan)



See http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix/ne/North_Korea/car/pix.html for more photos of this sleeping car.

In september 2008, two years after this trip, a friend and I finally succesfully travelled in exactly this sleeping car to Pyongyang, crossing the Russian/North Korean border at Khasan/Tumangan. This route is officially not allowed for tourists...
See my report at http://vienna-pyongyang.blogspot.com/

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• train
• North
• Korea
• DPRK
• Moskva
• Moscow
• Pyongyang
• Transsiberian
• Tumangan
• railway
• Nordkorea
• Eisenbahn

[utti1980]

BTW, if you want to use that North Korean train for a domestic trip inside Russia like Moscow - Irkutsk and meet some North Koreans - I can help you to get tickets ....just contact me...

[xxxdieselyyy]

hey man thanks for the vid!!! THat's pretty good quality, for a national railway honestly.... how was the price? In USD terms if u don't mind me asking? :)

[utti1980]

A Moscow - Pyongyang train ticket costs about 550 USD.

[wr1830]

Do they have a picture of either of the Kim's in the car or train enywhere?

[utti1980]

No, to my surprise there were no pics of the Kims in the waggon.

[hoeryong]

are there many border troops on the Russian side? is there a fence in the border? Is there a base nearby?

[utti1980]

I assume that there is a Russian base near the border, but I don't know details...

There is no fence at the border, as the borderline is in the middle of a river. However, there are fences on the Russian side of the river.

[ManoftheBeret]

What I meant was, don't fall asleep and accidentally cross into the DPRK without a visa.

[stephanomurgia]

wow better than Italian trains...

[divisioneight]

The toilets on the LIRR are cleaner than that chamber of horror. What's the spackle bucket in the second room? A second class toilet?

[jsnovais1000]

Listen, idiot!

Do you want luxury?— Pay for it!

[Janograd]

1:02 THE TOILET IS SMILING AT YOU!!!

[mickey13579]

Absolutely brilliant video. i have a plan to visit the DPRK someday, but it would be really fun to travel in DPRK coach also when travelling across Russia

[CookiesAndGuns95]

@isokessu North Koreans believe that even though the country is split up, they are one piece in their perspective, or they think that both are communist and should be united and by promoting that idea, they colored both north and south Korea.

[Internauta99]

a ze niby od kiedy mozna wjechac do korei płn??????????

[isokessu]

Why it's "democratic" and there's North AND South Korea together in the map? at 0:11

[MrScotia]

Fuck, has that thing got Wifi?

[MsEva92]

@vijayamohanan  WTFF??? You've smocked too much guy!

[NickyAmerica]

@vijayamohanan

lololol