SWPictures | International distributors of current affairs documentary films and news features


We have rare pictures of North Koreans hard at work, not in the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, but in Russia's Far East, where the North Korean government has created a home away from home for 1,500 of its citizens. They live and work in camps modelled on North Korean villages, complete with their own secret police force, communist slogans and portraits of the North Korean leadership. The pictures show North Koreans deep in the forests, living in rudimentary conditions as they cut down trees to earn their government some $7 million per year. These logs initially exported to China, eventually find their way across the world to markets in the EU and USA where they are used for products such as furniture. They are reliable workers, a Russian logging official in the area tells us his Korean workers get only three days off per year. They work to quota or they face punishment. Not surprisingly, many have escaped, and human rights groups say they continue to do so, even after the Russian company working with the Koreans was bought up by British investors.