Missile-mad In Pyongyang, Kim Jong-un had two new towers constructed to replicate his “most powerful” rockets.
The two towers were unveiled last week in the brand-new Hwasong neighborhood, which is named after the Hwasong missile family used by North Korea.
And it appears that the similarities between the towers and the rocket is no accident; the state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun specifically noted it in its columns.
The paper bragged: ‘The two high-rise residential houses rising side by side toward the sky in the Hwasong district seem to resemble Hwasong missiles, the pride of our country, as the name suggests.’
It also compared the ‘height reached by the Hwasong cannons flying towards the universe’ with that of the ‘grand and splendid scenery of the streets of Pyongyang’.
Regime newsreel footage reveals the inside of one tower, showing party cadres in its well-stocked supermarket and taking in the view from a new apartment.
It comes just days after Kim debuted his new Hwasong-18 missile, which Pyongyang calls its ‘most powerful, pivotal and principal means’ of defence.
The regime says the skyscrapers were built ‘for the people’ but with growing numbers of North Koreans teetering on the edge of starvation, experts aren’t so sure.
Markus Bell, a research fellow at La Trobe University in Australia, said: ‘Lopsided development has unequally benefitted denizens of Pyongyang.
‘The construction of these flashy ‘rocket apartments’ will benefit the most politically connected and the wealthiest of North Korea’s elite.
‘Ordinary people will not be able to afford to live in these apartments, in much the same way as ordinary people can’t afford to live in Kensington and Chelsea, and Islington.
‘Economically and materially, the construction of showcase buildings such as these does little to nothing to help regular North Koreans.’
Dr Bell also claimed the missile-like design was another method of linking the Kims to the Pyongyang skyline.
He said: ‘The missile program is a legacy project, the young leader having inherited it from his father and his grandfather.
‘The construction of these apartment blocks are symbolic in the ideological feedback loop that tells the country and, to a lesser extent, the world that the Kim’s are Korea and Korea is the Kims.’
Earlier this week, Kim launched one of the powerful Hwasong-18 rockets from what appeared to be his private golf course.
‘Basically it’s a threat’ said North Korea expert Jacob Bogle, who said the move was Kim’s way of saying ‘we can do this from anywhere and if you attack our dedicated ballistic missiles bases, we can still drive off to a random golf course or wherever and launch a nuke.’