Kumsusan Palace of the Sun

Overview

Inside the palace, Kim Il Sung's embalmed body lies inside a clear glass sarcophagus. His head rests on a traditional Korean buckwheat pillow and his body is covered by the flag of the Workers' Party of Korea. Kim Jong Il is on display in a room close to his father's remains and positioned in a very similar way.

At 115000 ft2, Kumsusan is the largest mausoleum dedicated to a Communist leader and the only one to house the remains of multiple people. Some halls inside the building are up to 1 km long. It is fronted by a large square, approximately 500 m in length. It is bordered on its northern and eastern sides by a moat.

Not far from the palace are the Kumsusan Guest Palace () which was built in 2019 and used by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and the older, Paekhwawon Guesthouse (), which was used by South Korean president Moon Jae-in, U.S. secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov.

History

The palace was built in 1976 as the Kumsusan Assembly Hall (금수산의사당) and as Kim Il Sung's official residence. Following the elder Kim's death in 1994, Kim Jong Il had the building renovated and transformed into his father's mausoleum. It is believed that the conversion cost at least $100 million. Some sources put the figure as high as $900 million.

Access and rules

Foreign visitors can access the palace only on an official government tour. Photography, videotaping, and smoking are not permitted anywhere inside the palace. The palace plaza, though, is open all week, and is a venue for national rallies.

The building is accessed via an underpass adjacent to a tram stop across the road. Upon entering the building, visitors (both foreigners and North Korean tourists) have to walk over a shoe cleaning device, are asked to check all personal belongings except their wallets in a cloak room, and are given a numbered ticket to claim their belongings when leaving. Visitors proceed along a series of long travelators (moving walkways).

Until 2015, visitors emerged into a long hall featuring two white marble statues of the Kims bathed in soft red light. This has since been replaced by a three-dimensional style portrait of the Kims with Mount Paektu in the background, flanked by national and party flags. Marble arched columns line the hall, guiding the eye through the space.

Visitors are instructed to stop at a yellow line on the floor and, after a few moments of contemplation, are beckoned into a subsequent room. Here, they are provided with small speaker devices that play a narration detailing the Korean people’s grief following the death of Kim Il Sung. The room features bronze-style busts of grieving figures. Finally, visitors take a lift to the top floor of the white and grey marble-walled building. After passing through a dust-blowing machine, they enter the rooms where the preserved remains of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il lie in state. A red rope barrier surrounds each transparent crystal sarcophagus. Visitors proceed in groups of four and are directed to bow at Kim Il Sung’s feet, then at his left and right sides.

The group then files into a museum room containing awards and honours bestowed upon Kim during his lifetime by foreign countries, universities, and friendship associations. This sequence is repeated on the lower level, where a nearly identical set of rooms contains the sarcophagus of Kim Jong Il and further rooms displaying his personal memorabilia.

Mementos

Adjoining rooms are filled with some of Kim Il Sung's possessions, as well as gifts and awards he received from around the world. There are no signs or information in Korean here. Awards include degree certificates, only one of which is from a Western university: Kensington University in California, US, an unaccredited university.

A peace medal from Japan lies next to his Medal "For the Victory over Japan" awarded to him by the Soviet Union. The room has large paintings and photographs of Kim Il Sung meeting world leaders during their visits to North Korea and during Kim's trips abroad, such as Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong of China, Nicolae Ceaușescu of Romania, General Secretary and Chairman Erich Honecker of the former East Germany, Gustáv Husák of the former Czechoslovakia, Wojciech Jaruzelski of Poland, Todor Zhivkov of Bulgaria, János Kádár of Hungary, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Josip Broz Tito of former Yugoslavia, Houari Boumediene of Algeria, Moktar Ould Daddah of Mauritania and Yasser Arafat of Palestine, as well as several former Soviet leaders, including Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev and many other well-known people including Che Guevara and former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

Death of Kim Il Sung

Main article: Death and state funeral of Kim Il Sung

In the early hours of 8 July 1994, Kim Il-sung collapsed in Hyangsan following a sudden heart attack. In the immediate aftermath, his son, Kim Jong-il, dismissed the medical team regularly stationed at his father’s side, instead arranging for the nation’s most honoured specialists to be flown in from Pyongyang. This manoeuvre was likely intended to secure the highest possible standard of medical programme to save his life. Despite these endeavours, Kim Il-sung died later that day at the age of 82. The news was not utilised or shared with the public until two days later, on 10 July 1994.

His death triggered a period of intense national mourning. The transition of power to Kim Jong-il had been meticulously organised over several decades, with the son already holding pivotal roles within the government and military. Kim Il-sung’s passing had a profound impact on the state; he was canonised as the ‘Eternal President’, and his specific brand of leadership defined North Korea's national identity. Kim Jong-il’s subsequent rule sought to crystallise his father’s legacy, maintaining the ideological framework of Juche—a policy that emphasises total self-reliance and independence.

Death of Kim Jong Il

Main article: Death and state funeral of Kim Jong Il

Following the death of Kim Jong Il in December 2011, his body lay in state at the palace for 10 days. Following this period, on 28 December 2011, the palace served as the start and end point for a 40 km funeral procession lasting three hours. The procession marked the first day of a two-day funeral ceremony.

Reportedly, Russian experts were brought to the mausoleum to embalm Kim Jong Il's body for permanent display in the same manner of his father and other former Communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and Joseph Stalin (until 1961 when he was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis).

On 12 January 2012, the North Korean government confirmed that Kim Jong Il's preserved remains would be put on permanent display in the palace and announced plans to erect a new Kim Jong Il statue and construct "towers to his immortality".

On 16 February 2012, the 70th anniversary of Kim Jong Il's birth, the building was formally renamed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun by a combined act of the North Korean cabinet and parliament, and the Workers' Party of Korea leadership, which was read aloud. A military parade by the Korean People's Army held that day in the palace grounds formally celebrated the occasion of its formal relaunch, preceded by a fireworks display.

After months of renovations, on December 17, 2012, Kim Jong Il's first death anniversary, the palace was officially reopened to the public in a ceremony. The preserved remains of Kim Jong Il are now shown to the public in a separate room, as well as several items related to him and documents made by him personally. The palace contains exhibits of his personal vehicles, outfits, and medals and decorations, which have now been added to the expanded collection as part of a reorganization. The wide empty foyer, formerly used in state ceremonies, was turned into a park with fountains and walkways for the enjoyment of visitors. A plaza is now at its center.

In addition to internal improvements, the palace grounds were renovated and turned into an expansive park and flower garden for the benefit of visitors. The construction and design of the park was reportedly directed by Kim Jong Un. The park grounds are open to locals and visitors alike.

On 2 April 2013, the Supreme People's Assembly on its plenary session for the year formally made a full amendment to the North Korean Constitution on the status of the palace and passed the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun Organic Law and its corresponding SPA Ordinance formally declaring the palace as a national landmark, defining its status, mission and vision, and prepared measures to maintain it for the benefit of Koreans and foreign tourists as well as the duties of the citizens of North Korea towards this memorial edifice.

References

Citations

Sources

References

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