The highest building of North Korea is an abandoned hotel that has never hosted any guest. Take a look at the “hotel of doom” more closely.

• Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea, is one of the tallest vacant buildings in the world.

• The construction of the Hotel of Doom began in 1987 and stopped and began several times.

• One side of the 1080 -foot building is equipped with LED screens used for light broadcasts.

At 1080 feet, the Ryugyong Hotel in North Korea in Pyongyang is one of the highest vacancies in the world.

The 105-storey Doom Hotel, which is also the tallest building in North Korea, has never hosted any guest. Construction started almost 40 years ago and has not yet been completed – the cost of finishing the building is estimated at about 5% of the country’s entire GDP.

However, the Ryugyong Hotel remains the subject of international charm.

Here is the story behind the abandoned skyscraper that dominates the silhouette of the capital.

The construction of the Ryugyong Hotel began in Pyongyang in 1987, but stopped due to economic problems in North Korea.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, North Korea lost its main trading partner and source of assistance, causing an economic crisis.

The hotel reached its full growth in 1992, but the inside was never completed.

The Ryugyong Hotel is 105 floors high and is sometimes called a building 105.

To this day, he has never hosted any guest.

Despite its aversion to foreign visitors, North Korea has several functional hotels in Pyongyang. While the Ryugyong Hotel is not over, the Yanggakdo International Hotel is the biggest in the city, and the Ryanggang Hotel is considered the most fantastic.

Its pyramidal form dominates the silhouette of Pyongyang for miles.

Each of the three sections of the building that combine at the top are 100 meters or 328 feet long, Atlas Atlura reported.

At the very top of the building, an eight -storey conical section had to include revolving restaurants.

It remains empty, like the rest of the hotel.

More outdoor work began at the hotel in 2008 with the installation of glass panels over its entire surface.

The Egyptian contractor, the Orascom group, took over the project and revived the construction in 2008, Reuters reports.

This would cost approximately $ 2 billion to finally finish the Ryugyong Hotel, Reuters reported in 2008, citing South Korean media.

North Korea’s gross domestic product is about $ 40 billion, according to the CIA World Book. This makes the cost of completing the building about 5% of the country’s entire GDP.

In the meantime, North Korea has found other applications for the building.

Pyongyang celebrates a day in 2009 with a fireworker framing the Ryugyong Hotel.

It serves as a dramatic background for the performances of art troupes.

Log performances usually contain propaganda messages. North Korea sent an art troupe to the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

It also provides a background for propaganda messages composed of over 100,000 LED screen.

In 2018, lighting designer Kim Yong Il created a light show consisting of political slogans and party symbols. He played on the surface of the building for several hours every night.

The building itself is still lacking electricity and there is no expected date of completion, but there are new signs of the progress of construction.

Alec Saglie, an Australian student who studied for a master’s degree in Korean literature at Kim Ir Sung University, Posted on x Regarding the new signs above the main entrance of the hotel in June 2019, a month later, it was detained for a week and subsequently released after the North Korean authorities accused him of committing “spying” against the state. He was later expelled from the country.

It is reported that the North Korean authorities are hoping to find a foreign investor to build a casino in the empty space.

Radio Free Asia announced in July 2024 that the North Korean leadership was looking for a foreign investor to buy gambling rights and casino operation at the Ryugyong Hotel as part of a transaction to complete the rest of its interior.

Authorities are hoping to repeat the success and profitability of the casino at the Yanggakdo International Hotel of Pyongyang, which proved to be popular with tourists, The Outlet reported, citing an anonymous North Korean source.

He continues to live next to his nickname, Hotel of Fortunately.

The actual name of the Ryugyong hotel comes from the historical name for Pyongyang, which means “the capital of willow.”

Read the original Business Insider article