- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un often takes his family’s personal armored train to other countries.
- He’s currently using it to travel to eastern Russia for his first-ever visit to the country and meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
- Not much is known about this train, but previous accounts and footage show it to be filled with French wine, Apple computers, and plush leather seats.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to eastern Russia this week for his first-ever visit to the country and meeting with President Vladimir Putin.
While some of his delegation flew from North Korea to Vladivostok, where the two leaders will meet, Kim opted to travel hundreds of miles in his family’s armored train instead.
He often takes it to travel abroad – in March, he took a laborious, two-day-long train ride through eastern and southern China to get from Pyongyang to Hanoi, Vietnam, to meet US President Donald Trump.
Not much is known about the Kim family train, a 21-carriage, khaki green train with a distinctive yellow line running across it.
But previous accounts and footage show it to be filled with imported French wine, Apple computers, and plush leather seats. Photos from North Korean state media also provide a rare look inside the unusual vehicle.
Take a look inside:
North Korean media on Wednesday aired footage of Kim waving goodbye to army officials and civilians before boarding the train.
While most of Kim's foreign trips are kept secret, it's easy to know when he's out of the country due to the distinctive green train.
Kim has used the train to travel to China and Vietnam before.
The North Korean leader used the family train to travel to China on his birthday in January 2019, and in March 2018. He also took it to Vietnam to meet Trump earlier this year.
When Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, used the train, officials would shut down power to other lines so nobody could get in his way.
Source: The Chosun Ilbo
The train has an average speed of just 37 mph — likely because every carriage is bulletproof, making it much heavier than a regular train.
Source: The Chosun Ilbo, The New York Times
It also has a red-carpeted ramp on which the supreme leader can board the train.
During his Wednesday trip to Russia, however, the train accidentally overshot a red carpet laid out in advance for Kim's entrance, Business Insider's Alex Lockie reported.
The North Korean leader's security detail was forced to stand holding a ramp while the train repositioned.
Read more: Kim Jong Un's meeting with Putin was delayed by a red carpet gaffe that derailed his grand entrance
Here's the red carpet ramp from another angle. The woman in the picture is Kim Jong Un's sister Kim Yo Jong, who often accompanies her brother to foreign trips.
Inside one of the carriages are pink leather chairs with small wooden tables in between. Here's Kim, his wife Ri Sol Ju, and other officials sitting on them.
This carriage looks long enough to fit at least 20 people.
Apart from the color of the chairs, the design inside the train carriages don't seem to have changed much since the reign of Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un's father and predecessor.
The elder Kim also had a flat-screen TV, wooden desk and a computer at the end of one of his carriages.
The desk and computer are now being preserved at Kim's mausoleum in Pyongyang. It's not clear where the TV is.
Watch this YouTube video from 2011 to see what the train was like when Kim Jong Il was leader.
Source: The New York Times
Kim Jong Un also conducts official business on the train. This still from a 2015 video shows him speaking to officials in an all-white conference room during a domestic trip.
Unlike his father, however, Kim seems to prefer using Apple MacBooks to desktop computers.
Kim Jong Un is known to be an Apple fan.
Kim Jong Il used to travel in opulence — he stocked his train with Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines, silver chopsticks, and whatever else he fancied from around the world.
This is according to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian official who travelled with the late North Korean leader in the early 2000s - when the rest of North Korea was reliant on humanitarian aid after years of famine.
Source: The New York Times
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and French cuisine" on board, Pulikovsky said. This undated footage shows a section of the train's dining carriage under Kim Jong Il's reign, which has reportedly since been renovated.
Watch the entire video of the dining car here.
Source: The New York Times
It's not clear whether Kim Jong Un stocks the train as opulently as his father did. But he's not known to be one to skimp — he reportedly enjoys Swiss cheese, Cristal Champagne and Hennessy cognac.
Source: The New York Times
He's also been caught taking smoke breaks during his lengthy train ride to Vietnam in February, with his sister Kim Yo Jong holding a crystal ashtray for him.
