Moscow – A group of Russian citizens, including a diplomat and his family, used a hand-drawn tram to cross North Koreaback to the border with his native country, said the Russian Foreign Ministry. North Korea closed its borders about a year ago, suspending transport links with its neighbors due to the spread of COVID-19.
North Korea borders Russia at the eastern end of the dishonest and isolated nation, but there are currently no trains running between countries. This did not stop the group of Russians, who used the tram to cross the border with their many suitcases and small children.
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The group of eight included the third embassy secretary, Vladislav Sorokin, and his family, including his 3-year-old daughter, Varvara, the Foreign Ministry said in a Twitter post on Thursday.
They had to travel “32 hours by train, then another two hours by bus to the border and, finally, the most important part of the route – walking to the Russian side,” the post said.
The tram was made specifically for this trip in advance and placed on the tracks. Sorokin was the main “engine” that needed to push the loaded cart over eight hundred meters. Itamaraty posted a video of the group crossing a bridge over the Tumen River, which separates the two countries.
On the Russian side, they were received by local officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The group had to take another bus to the nearest airport in Vladivostok. State news agency RIA Novosti reported on Friday that they had gone to Moscow.
In the past, the railway was used by the leader of the North, Kim Jong Un, and his father, Kim Jong Il, for his visits to Russia in familiar armored train.
Despite months of negotiations with the North Korean government, the tram was the only direct approved way for Russians to return home, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Kommersant FM radio station on Friday.
The only other option would be to go back through China, which includes a three-week quarantine there, she said.
“Diplomatic service is very difficult, it can be very difficult,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, himself a former diplomat, told reporters on Friday.