The strongest girl of the plant, Maryana Naumova, wrote a letter to Kim Jong-iL and aksed him to show her his country which is so much rumoured about. The response was not long in coming.
The girl from Moscow, world record holder 2010-2013, considers herself to be a Komsomol member too and says that the pioneer organization still exists in Russia.
The girl wrote to Kim Jong-iL that Russia does not know enough about North Korea, people’s impression is made by TV and the Internet which are full of false information. She asked for a permission to meet Korean sportsmen and kids to tell them about Russia and about sport and to know how sport is being developed in North Korea.
Maryana sent her letter to the email of North Koreaт Embassy and she actually did not expect to get a response within two weeks. Soon enough she and her father were in the Embassy getting their visas (other tourists are making them for months).
By the way all the expenses for Maryana’s trip were defrayed by the North Korean Ministry of Sport. Maryana didn’t meet Kim Jong-iL in person but she managed to visit the Olympic team of the country.
Maryana tells that sport is developed in the country rather well, each kind of sport has its own palace (though powerlifting does not have its own). They treat powerlifting as a type of fitness though they showed much respect to Maryana.
Many stereotypes about North Korea were broken during the trip. No patriotic singing in the streets, for example. And nobody took her cellphone away. She had read about horrible poverty but those people were buying food, lemonade and chewing gum, and they surely had money for bread…
Some elederly people prefer such small houses to monumental high-rise buildings.
According to the girl, Pyongyang is almost empty in daytime, people are working and studying, in the evening the city revives. Someone is drinking beer in a park, others do exercises in the open air, these people like sport.
Maryana’s father was mainly impressed by North Korean schoolcheldren, he had never seen so neat kids.
Maryana believes that sport can truly unite people of the world. Her next trip will be even more extreme, she is going to Syria despite the war.
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