North Korean tour guides lead visitors through the regime’s latest cultural showpiece, a grand new panorama museum reported to have cost $24m.

The museum’s showpiece is a 120m long, 13m high, 360° mural painted by the country’s lauded Mansudae studio artists.

But this isn’t Pyongyang and the mural does not depict scenes of heroism by the ruling Kim dynasty. Instead the museum is in Siem Reap in Cambodia, a stone’s throw from the world heritage site of Angkor Wat but thousands of miles from the seat of the DPRK regime, and the paintings depict the Angkor era of 802 -1431.

Part grand design and part diplomacy project, the Angkor Panorama museum, which opened in December, is the latest cultural export North Korea hopes will bring in much-needed funds for its struggling economy...

ExPenhMan wrote:Thanks Hanno.

I'd read the entire thing was financed, designed, painted and installed by North Koreans flown in for the job. And they keep all the (mighty US dollar) revenue for years (forgot how many). If I were Cambodian, I'd be a little ticked off that something so Khmer was entirely built by outsiders.