School Fine Arts Group Nurtures Students’ Talent Hwawon Senior Middle School No. 1 in Hwasong District, Pyongyang, helps its students cultivate good talents with efficient operation of a fine arts group. The school brings those with aptitude for fine arts in the group and teaches them basic skills. The group helps the members develop their practical abilities with better understanding of the techniques and means of depiction peculiar to fine arts such as shading, line drawing and colouring. It frequently organizes outdoor drawing sessions. Students travel around the city visiting scenic sites, modern streets and monumental edifices to draw a clear and vivid picture of the real world. In this course, they produce delicate works in terms of formative artistic representation, concreteness and presentation. With frequent displays of the works by the members, the group helps them share experience and promote their eagerness to learn new things. Thanks to such efforts, group members have high ratings at the works contest of schools in the district and win diplomas in annual national festivals related to sculpture, craftwork, sketch and calligraphy.

Spectacular New Year Scenery On the occasion of the New Year, the capital city of Pyongyang was adorned with a spectacular scenery, boosting the holiday atmosphere. Several places of Pyongyang were set out with colourful decorations to celebrate the New Year. The capital city was full of glittering light ornaments adding joy to the New Year’s eve. Happy faces of people skating and sledding at the brightly illuminated outdoor ice rink in the central part of the capital city also added joy to the night scenery.

The DPRK Significantly Greeted New Year 2026 Officials, working people, service personnel and schoolchildren visited the statues of President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il on Mansu Hill and in other parts of the country and the mosaics depicting the peerlessly great men to lay flower baskets, bouquets and flowers before them and made bows. Children and pupils of primary schools across the country received confectionery associated with the loving care of the respected fatherly Marshal Kim Jong Un on the occasion of the New Year. A circus was given by acrobats of the National Acrobatic Troupe at Pyongyang Circus Theatre. Sports and amusement games were played by officials, working people and youth and students in the South Hamgyong Provincial Sports Village and Hamhung Stadium, adding joy to celebrations. Performances for greeting the New Year were given by children in North Phyongan, South Hwanghae and Kangwon provinces, Kaesong Municipality and other areas.

Mirim Riding Club The Korean people have been fond of horse riding since old time. The horse riding has grown all the more popular among the Korean people with the opening of a riding club in Mirim area in a suburb of Pyongyang. Across the vast expanse of the ground stand scores of service buildings associated with the horse riding along with riding tracks. They boast of top-class facilities like the indoor and outdoor training areas, a rehabilitation centre, a veterinary hospital and so on. It also has a learning space for knowledge about horse riding, consisting of several lecture rooms and sci-tech dissemination rooms. Mirim Riding Club is giving the additional pleasure and optimism to our people as a public horse riding facility.

Skiing Tour on Masik Pass Every winter Masikryong Ski Resort is booming with ski fans, working people and other holidaymakers from across the country. It is thrilling to see skiers, both experts and fans, sliding down different slopes starting from the summit of Taehwa Peak rising 1,363 metres above the sea level. Holidaymakers climbing to the summit of Taehwa Peak on the chairlift give out loud exclamations of excitement at the marvellous landscape while young people and children play cheerfully on the sledging course and in the snow park. After the exciting hours on the skiing courses, people relax themselves at the service facilities of the splendid Masikryong Hotel standing in harmony with the natural scenery. The attraction to the ski resort is snowballing with the growing number of people visiting the modern public sports tourism facility.

Kimchi Season in DPRK All families in the country are now busy making winter kimchi. Housewives get together to taste each other’s spices for kimchi and comment on them. They also compete with each other to make more delicious kimchi. In this season, the friendly feelings between neighbors are further deepened and every house and every village is full of laughter. Following is the recipe of whole cabbage kimchi. First, pickle the cabbage and then wash them. Then put spices made of red pepper, onion, garlic, ginger, fish, pickled fish, etc. inside the leaves of the cabbage and ferment them. Whole cabbage kimchi is the traditional food of our people, and it is indispensable for their diet. The ingredients and recipes for kimchi are different from one region to another. The “Kimchi-making Custom” of the DPRK was registered as World Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2015.