Qualla: Pyongyang https://qualla.com/pyongyang en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:39 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Pyongyang https://qualla.com/pyongyang Pyongyang: Introduction https://qualla.com/pyongyang/ The name means 'flat land,' and the irony cuts deep. Pyongyang sits on a gentle plain along the Taedong River, but nothing about this city of 3.2 million is simple or level. Once a thriving center of Protestant Christianity -- missionaries in the early 1900s called it the 'Jerusalem of the East' after the explosive Pyongyang Revival of 1907 -- the city was bombed into near-total oblivion during the Korean War, then rebuilt from rubble into a monument to state ideology. Every boulevard, every tower, every public square was designed to project a single message. The result is a capital unlike any other on Earth.

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]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/c/m/pyongyang-wp/wycm-pyongyang-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Pyongyang: Five Thousand Years on the Taedong https://qualla.com/pyongyang/ Pyongyang's history stretches back millennia. According to Korean tradition, it was the capital of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom, legendarily founded in 2333 BC. The city served as the capital of several subsequent kingdoms, including Goguryeo, which ruled from here between ...

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]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/c/m/pyongyang-wp/wycm-pyongyang-five-thousand-years-on-the-taedong.mp3 0:06 2 full Pyongyang: Ashes and Blueprints https://qualla.com/pyongyang/ The Korean War left almost nothing standing. American bombing campaigns between 1950 and 1953 destroyed an estimated 75 percent of the city. What rose from the wreckage was not a restoration but a reinvention. Kim Il Sung oversaw the construction of a showcase socialist capital, ...

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]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/c/m/pyongyang-wp/wycm-pyongyang-ashes-and-blueprints.mp3 0:06 3 full Pyongyang: The Architecture of Devotion https://qualla.com/pyongyang/ Pyongyang's landmarks read like a catalog of political worship. The Mansudae Grand Monument features twin 22-meter bronze statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, where citizens are expected to bow. The Kumsusan Palace of the Sun preserves the embalmed bodies of both leaders in gl...

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]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/c/m/pyongyang-wp/wycm-pyongyang-the-architecture-of-devotion.mp3 0:06 4 full Pyongyang: A City of Controlled Surfaces https://qualla.com/pyongyang/ Foreign visitors describe a place of contradictions. The Pyongyang Metro, one of the deepest subway systems in the world at over 100 meters below ground, features ornate chandeliers and mosaic murals glorifying the revolution -- and doubles, by most accounts, as a nuclear bunker....

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]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/c/m/pyongyang-wp/wycm-pyongyang-a-city-of-controlled-surfaces.mp3 0:06 5 full Pyongyang: The River Beneath It All https://qualla.com/pyongyang/ The Taedong River still curves through the city as it has for millennia, indifferent to the monuments lining its banks. Fishermen work its waters. Cherry blossoms bloom along its banks each spring. Beneath the ideology and the architecture, Pyongyang remains a city where people l...

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]]> Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/y/c/m/pyongyang-wp/wycm-pyongyang-the-river-beneath-it-all.mp3 0:06 6 full