More than 87 000—this figure indicates the number of the houses built in over 1 500 rural villages for three years since the rural revolution programme in the new era was announced in the DPRK. And rural houses under construction at present exceeds 20 000.

Last year alone house-moving ceremonies took place in several hundred rural villages. In particular, over 10 farms, including the Sudo Farm of the South Hamgyong Provincial Rural Economy Committee and the Tokhung Farm in Nampho’s Kangso District, held such auspicious events twice respectively.

Pyongyang was the first in the country to carry out the housing construction plan for last year, while North Phyongan Province built more than 10 100 flats in 40-odd farms.

Modern flats appeared in Sinuiju’s Hadan-ri and Uiju County’s Soho-ri of North Phyongan Province which were heavily hit by flood last year. As a result, several thousand farmers settled in the new houses. Kim Tuk Song living in Neighbourhood Unit No. 70 of Hadan-ri and all his brothers received new houses on the same day and they greeted the New Year in the splendid houses.

New houses were also built in Namjak Farm of Yonsa County of North Hamgyong Province, a northern part of the country. The farm is so remote that if a house had a visitor from Pyongyang, all villagers would come to see the guest. The locals said that luxurious houses in Pyongyang they had wished to live in while watching TV were relocated to their home village which is well over 500 miles away from the capital city.

A farmer at the Wangjaesan Farm, Onsong County, North Hamgyong Province, said on the house-moving day that he used to live in a single-room house with three children and that he had never dreamed that he would be given a new, nice house free of charge.

The housing construction campaign aimed to renovate all the rural communities in the country all at once has been pushed ahead on a yearly basis in the face of the unprecedented extreme hardships. This cannot be imagined apart from the devoted efforts of the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un to make the rapid rural rejuvenation substantial so that farmers can benefit from it.

Saying that we should speed up the construction of rural houses come what may and that if then, our country will turn into an earthly paradise, he toured construction sites one after another to create models for rural construction.

Once he said: If a tree is to grow well, its root hairs should be healthier than the main roots. Likewise, houses should be built at remote mountainous farms, and poorest farms before any other farms. By doing so we can make sure that the cheers for the Workers’ Party are raised first from mountainous areas.

His noble intention has served as a motive force behind the eye-opening reality of the rural rejuvenation.

Yang Ryon Hui