Russian diplomats and their families leave North Korea by hand-pushed rail trolley

Eight employees of Russia’s Embassy in Pyongyang and their families spent more than 34 hours trying to leave North Korea this week, a grueling trip that ended with at least one diplomat pushing his luggage and young children on a railway trolley into Russian territory.

North Korea’s borders have been effectively locked down for months as part of the Kim Jong Un regime’s efforts to keep Covid-19 at bay, stranding the few diplomats operating inside Pyongyang. North Korean state-owned airline Air Koryo operates flights from Vladivostok in eastern Russia, but those flights have also been suspended for months.

The labyrinthine journey was the only way the Russian diplomats and their families could leave the country, the Russian Embassy said on its verified Facebook page.

The journey began by train. The Russians spent 32 hours traveling on North Korea’s old, poorly maintained and notoriously slow rail system. They then rode a bus for two hours to the border, where the families needed to order a railroad trolley for their luggage and push it the rest of the way.

A trolley, also known as a handcart, is a type of railroad car popularized in the 1800s that is powered by its passengers through the use of a pump action lever, or by people manually pushing the car from behind.



https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/26/asia/north-korea-trolley-russian-diplomats-intl-hnk/index.html