Kim Jong Un inaugurates Kalma: North Korea's controversial resort

Kalma: Kim Jong Un's macro-resort opens with full beaches and empty answers

A luxury tourist complex in the planet's most secretive country? Yes. On June 24, 2025, Kim Jong Un inaugurated the Kalma Coastal Tourist Zone in the Wonsan peninsula, a project the regime presents as a "symbol of the superiority and invincibility of socialism." Images of the ceremony, broadcast by state media, show hotels, boardwalks, and crowded beaches. Data on its funding, usage, and schedule, however, generate more skepticism than admiration.

A nearly decade-long project, inaugurated at full capacity

Construction began in 2017, according to data circulating in the project's analysis. The inauguration took place on June 24, 2025, but the complex did not reach full activity until August of that same year. The regime opted for a gradual opening, first reserved for North Korean citizens and later expanded to international visitors. This gradation partly explains the disparity in images: early photos showed empty infrastructure, while those from mid-summer showed crowded beaches.

Satellite images from Google Maps fueled doubts. They show few cars or people. Defenders of the project argue that the snapshots depend on the date and time they were taken: it is already cold in Wonsan in September. A detail that does not fully clear up the question of how long a complex of this magnitude will remain in use.

Russian funding: a rumor that does not match the timeline

One of the most repeated controversies was the alleged funding of the resort with a Russian loan in exchange for sending North Korean soldiers to Ukraine. The argument is debunked simply by looking at the calendar: Kalma's construction began in 2017, five years before Russia launched its 2022 military operation and before North Korea sent any support. The temporal coincidence does not exist, which does not prevent the rumor from continuing to circulate.

A socialist Benidorm or a theme park?

The comparison with Spanish tourism was inevitable. Some recall the Benidorm of the 60s and argue that North Korea arrives 70 years late. Others go further and equate the complex with a "theme park" built with Chinese capital, designed for internal propaganda consumption rather than real tourism. The leisure program of the Third Reich, "Kraft durch Freude," was also cited as a precedent for a regime that organizes its citizens' leisure while prohibiting criticism.

What the complex does not resolve

The Kalma resort exists, the images are real, and the project is colossal. What remains unanswered is who pays for it, who maintains it, and what its role will be in an economy subject to international sanctions. The gradual opening and photos of crowded beaches demonstrate, at the very least, that the regime can mobilize its population for a photo. Whether that is a tourist success or an exercise in propaganda will depend on how many foreign visitors return.

The only data that does not fit the narrative of "socialist supremacy" is the simplest: in a country with a shortage of housing, foreign currency, and food, the greatest achievement of a decade is a vacation complex. Let us toast to the people's holidays. After all, seventy years of waiting to have our own Benidorm is, in socialist terms, a resounding success.