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Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
Vasily Kolchanov still shows up for work every morning, even though he has little to do these days. The United States sanctioned him last month over claims that he helped North Korea buy oil.“Should I shoot myself? Or, no, I shouldn’t shoot myself,” Kolchanov, a shipping agent, muttered from behind his bushy mustache in this port of Nakhodka in Russia’s Far East.A North Korean refrigerated cargo ship approached. The 72-year-old Kolchanov hoped it would bring some much-needed work for his company, which provides document logistics and other services.“The Koreans are our last hope for keeping ourselves fed,” he said in his office, based on the ground floor of a Soviet-era apartment block where bedsheets and undergarments dangle from the balconies.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Russia on Sept. 14 of actively working to undermine international sanctions on North Korea. (Video: Reuters)Seven time zones and 4,000 miles from Moscow — or a 100-minute flight from North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang — Russia’s Far East sees its fate bound up in the diplomacy playing out on the Korean Peninsula and in Washington.An outcome that opens up North Korea to more trade and investment could be a boon for places such as Nakhodka, just 115 miles from the North Korean border. The region is so close, in fact, that the ground shook during last year’s nuclear test blast by the regime of Kim Jong Un.The region’s bonds with Korea have deep — and tragic — roots.Before World War II, some 170,000 ethnic Koreans lived in the Russian Far East. Stalin viewed them as a liability because Japan occupied Korea at the time. He had virtually all of them loaded onto trains and relocated to Central Asia.Now, South Korean tourism to the Russian Far East is booming, marketed as a “European getaway two hours away.” More than 70,000 South Korean tourists came in the first half of this year, on pace to double last year’s total.North Korean officials, in turn, flock to Russia’s Far East to find ways to boost trade despite sanctions. At a festival this month to mark North Korea’s 70th year, young women in traditional dress hawked candy, cosmetics and North Korea’s version of Viagra.“Please buy something!” Cha Jaegon, an organizer of the fair who had flown in from Pyongyang for the occasion, said in English.Russians, meanwhile, grumble that the international economic squeeze on Kim’s regime is driving away the low-cost North
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