Koryo Hotel
| Koryo Hotel | |
 |
|
| Korean name | |
|---|---|
| Chosŏn'gŭl | 고려호텔 |
| Hancha | 高麗호텔 |
| Revised Romanization | Goryeo Hotel |
| McCune–Reischauer | Koryŏ Hot'el |
The Koryo Hotel is the second largest operating hotel in North Korea, the largest being the Yanggakdo Hotel. The Ryugyong Hotel is larger, but is not yet operating. The twin-towered Koryo Hotel building is 143 metres (469 ft) tall and contains 43 stories. Erected in 1985 under the scrutiny of Kim Il-sung, it was intended to "showcase the glory and strength of the DPRK."
The hotel is rated three stars by Western standards. North Korea rates it as five stars. A section of the hotel reportedly caught fire on 11 June 2015 due to undisclosed circumstances, leaving the bridge between the two buildings badly damaged.The hotel features prominantly as a location for meetings in the novel "A Corpse in The Koryo", the first novel in the Inspector O mystery series.
"Koryo" is the name of an early kingdom which is the source of the English name "Korea". It is also used in the name of the North Korean airline, Air Koryo.
The Koryo Hotel replaced an older hotel of the same name, but in a different location. For a time after 1946 the leader of North Korea's Democratic Party Cho Man-sik was kept under house arrest in the older Koryo Hotel.
The hotel is situated close to Pyongyang Station in Chung-kuyok, central Pyongyang.
The hotel's extravagance is exemplified by its entryway, which consists of a 9-metre (30 ft) wide jade dragon's mouth that leads into an expansive lobby dominated by a mosaic of North Korean cultural symbols. The mosaic tiles make use of a wide variety of precious metals and gemstones underneath low-dispersion glass panes, which are replaced biannually to preserve the mosaic's luster.
The hotel has 500 rooms. Rooms are equipped with a mini-bar and TV. Guests have reported power outages within the hotel grounds.
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Wikipedia