Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which describes itself as the “only true specialist in travel to the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea”, has posted photos from inside the forever unfinished, 105-storey monument-to-nothing that is the Ryugyong Hotel.

The Ozymandian hotel, which was intended to be the tallest building in the world and a symbol of the glory of Juche thought when construction began in 1987, became a symbol of humiliation for the Kim-regime after the collapse of the Soviet Union and North Korea’s subsequent economic crisis and famine made continuing work on the edifice impossible. The hotel was such a sore point for the insane, homicidal government of the DPRK that it was removed from printed maps despite the fact that (as this photo from February 2009 demonstrates) the building, 330 metres (1,080ft) high, towers over Pyongyang skyline.

Construction was allegedly resumed in 2008, though the South Korean media at the time estimated it would cost over $2 billion to finish the building, more than 10% of the DPRK’s annual economic output.

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