'They should be big, boiled and in broth'

Kim Jong Il, the bon vivant
James Brooke/NYT The New York Times

Russian's tell-all book causes a furor at home

TOKYO President George W. Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by his North Korean government.
.
But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a rare foreigner who has spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong Il is a fun-loving guy.
.
Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks, and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.
.
Called "Orient Express" and published this autumn in Moscow, the 200-page snapshot-laden book prompted a diplomatic protest from North Korea and teeth gnashing in Russia's Foreign Ministry. It draws heavily on a confidential report prepared by a Russian Foreign Ministry note-taker on board during Kim's leisurely one-month train ride across Russia in the summer of 2001. (Kim made a second, shorter train trip into Russia this past summer, also accompanied by Pulikovsky.)
.
"Pulikovsky published what he was not supposed to publish," said Alexandre Mansourov, once a Soviet diplomat in North Korea who now teaches at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
.
"He violated a personal trust, not just of Kim Jong Il, but of the people who put the report together. More copies of this book have probably been bought by foreign governments and intelligence agencies than by Russians themselves."
.
The book appeared shortly after North Korean officials admitted that they had a nuclear weapons program.
.
With estimates of his nuclear arsenal ranging up to five bombs, intelligence agencies around the world are gleaning this limited-edition memoir for new clues about the North Korean leader.
.
In power for almost a decade, Kim has given few speeches at home, has rarely traveled outside his isolated country, and has granted no interviews to Western reporters.
.
"I am the object of criticism around the world," Pulikovsky quotes Kim as saying in one meeting on the long train ride. "But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track."
.
For North Korea's government, the most damaging accounts are descriptions of lengthy banquets, jarring tales for a country where as many as 2 million people starved to death during the mid-1990s. Human rights groups contend that the government diverted international food shipments to North Korea's 1.1-million-member military and to families of loyal cadres.
.
In contrast, the Russian wrote, "Kim Jong Il can be called a gourmet."
.
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine," he wrote of the specially outfitted train that carried Kim.
.
The North Koreans made sure that live lobsters were shipped to the train to provide Kim with fresh delicacies during the tedium of crossing Siberia. Cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines were flown from Paris. Even Putin's private train "did not have the comfort of Kim Jong Il's train," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
Impressed with the brown bread at a Khabarovsk restaurant, North Korea's leader had an aide fly 20 loaves to Pyongyang so that it would be fresh on his arrival. On a stop at Omsk, the North Korean rejected a plate of barrel-salted pickles, dismissing the offer as shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria, not prepared in the authentic Russian style.
.
"Then they served tiny pelmeni, kopeck-size, in a small frying pan baked under cheese and mayonnaise," Pulikovsky wrote, recalling crestfallen faces on the Siberian hosts as the Russian meat dumplings arrived. "Kim Jong Il picked at them with a fork and said: 'What kind of pelmeni are these? They should be big, boiled and in broth.'"
.
With meals on the train stretching sometimes for four hours or more, entertainment often took the form of singing Russian and Korean songs. The North Korean leader, who had left his wife back in Pyongyang, particularly enjoyed the charms of four young singers, who were introduced as "lady conductors," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
When his government ministers came into his office, "they bent deferentially in a deep bow and remained like this until there was a hardly visible sign from their commander that they could straighten their backs," he wrote.
.
Taking a skeptical attitude about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, Kim, whose government is skilled at extracting foreign aid, once commented to Pulikovsky, "Many countries just exaggerate their disasters to get more aid from the international community."
.
Some Koreans say that such remarks merely follow a 1,000-year tradition.
.
"Basically, this is a kingdom, and therefore the king is the absolute power," said Suh Dae Sook, a University of Hawaii political science professor whose ancestral village is in northern Korea.
.
Noting that Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Il Sung, became leader of North Korea in 1948, he said, "A monarchical absolute tradition of five centuries will not disappear in 50 years." Russian's tell-all book causes a furor at home

TOKYO President George W. Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by his North Korean government.
.
But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a rare foreigner who has spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong Il is a fun-loving guy.
.
Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks, and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.
.
Called "Orient Express" and published this autumn in Moscow, the 200-page snapshot-laden book prompted a diplomatic protest from North Korea and teeth gnashing in Russia's Foreign Ministry. It draws heavily on a confidential report prepared by a Russian Foreign Ministry note-taker on board during Kim's leisurely one-month train ride across Russia in the summer of 2001. (Kim made a second, shorter train trip into Russia this past summer, also accompanied by Pulikovsky.)
.
"Pulikovsky published what he was not supposed to publish," said Alexandre Mansourov, once a Soviet diplomat in North Korea who now teaches at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
.
"He violated a personal trust, not just of Kim Jong Il, but of the people who put the report together. More copies of this book have probably been bought by foreign governments and intelligence agencies than by Russians themselves."
.
The book appeared shortly after North Korean officials admitted that they had a nuclear weapons program.
.
With estimates of his nuclear arsenal ranging up to five bombs, intelligence agencies around the world are gleaning this limited-edition memoir for new clues about the North Korean leader.
.
In power for almost a decade, Kim has given few speeches at home, has rarely traveled outside his isolated country, and has granted no interviews to Western reporters.
.
"I am the object of criticism around the world," Pulikovsky quotes Kim as saying in one meeting on the long train ride. "But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track."
.
For North Korea's government, the most damaging accounts are descriptions of lengthy banquets, jarring tales for a country where as many as 2 million people starved to death during the mid-1990s. Human rights groups contend that the government diverted international food shipments to North Korea's 1.1-million-member military and to families of loyal cadres.
.
In contrast, the Russian wrote, "Kim Jong Il can be called a gourmet."
.
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine," he wrote of the specially outfitted train that carried Kim.
.
The North Koreans made sure that live lobsters were shipped to the train to provide Kim with fresh delicacies during the tedium of crossing Siberia. Cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines were flown from Paris. Even Putin's private train "did not have the comfort of Kim Jong Il's train," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
Impressed with the brown bread at a Khabarovsk restaurant, North Korea's leader had an aide fly 20 loaves to Pyongyang so that it would be fresh on his arrival. On a stop at Omsk, the North Korean rejected a plate of barrel-salted pickles, dismissing the offer as shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria, not prepared in the authentic Russian style.
.
"Then they served tiny pelmeni, kopeck-size, in a small frying pan baked under cheese and mayonnaise," Pulikovsky wrote, recalling crestfallen faces on the Siberian hosts as the Russian meat dumplings arrived. "Kim Jong Il picked at them with a fork and said: 'What kind of pelmeni are these? They should be big, boiled and in broth.'"
.
With meals on the train stretching sometimes for four hours or more, entertainment often took the form of singing Russian and Korean songs. The North Korean leader, who had left his wife back in Pyongyang, particularly enjoyed the charms of four young singers, who were introduced as "lady conductors," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
When his government ministers came into his office, "they bent deferentially in a deep bow and remained like this until there was a hardly visible sign from their commander that they could straighten their backs," he wrote.
.
Taking a skeptical attitude about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, Kim, whose government is skilled at extracting foreign aid, once commented to Pulikovsky, "Many countries just exaggerate their disasters to get more aid from the international community."
.
Some Koreans say that such remarks merely follow a 1,000-year tradition.
.
"Basically, this is a kingdom, and therefore the king is the absolute power," said Suh Dae Sook, a University of Hawaii political science professor whose ancestral village is in northern Korea.
.
Noting that Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Il Sung, became leader of North Korea in 1948, he said, "A monarchical absolute tradition of five centuries will not disappear in 50 years." Russian's tell-all book causes a furor at home

TOKYO President George W. Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by his North Korean government.
.
But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a rare foreigner who has spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong Il is a fun-loving guy.
.
Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks, and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.
.
Called "Orient Express" and published this autumn in Moscow, the 200-page snapshot-laden book prompted a diplomatic protest from North Korea and teeth gnashing in Russia's Foreign Ministry. It draws heavily on a confidential report prepared by a Russian Foreign Ministry note-taker on board during Kim's leisurely one-month train ride across Russia in the summer of 2001. (Kim made a second, shorter train trip into Russia this past summer, also accompanied by Pulikovsky.)
.
"Pulikovsky published what he was not supposed to publish," said Alexandre Mansourov, once a Soviet diplomat in North Korea who now teaches at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
.
"He violated a personal trust, not just of Kim Jong Il, but of the people who put the report together. More copies of this book have probably been bought by foreign governments and intelligence agencies than by Russians themselves."
.
The book appeared shortly after North Korean officials admitted that they had a nuclear weapons program.
.
With estimates of his nuclear arsenal ranging up to five bombs, intelligence agencies around the world are gleaning

< < Back to Start of Article Russian's tell-all book causes a furor at home

TOKYO President George W. Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by his North Korean government.
.
But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a rare foreigner who has spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong Il is a fun-loving guy.
.
Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks, and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.
.
Called "Orient Express" and published this autumn in Moscow, the 200-page snapshot-laden book prompted a diplomatic protest from North Korea and teeth gnashing in Russia's Foreign Ministry. It draws heavily on a confidential report prepared by a Russian Foreign Ministry note-taker on board during Kim's leisurely one-month train ride across Russia in the summer of 2001. (Kim made a second, shorter train trip into Russia this past summer, also accompanied by Pulikovsky.)
.
"Pulikovsky published what he was not supposed to publish," said Alexandre Mansourov, once a Soviet diplomat in North Korea who now teaches at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
.
"He violated a personal trust, not just of Kim Jong Il, but of the people who put the report together. More copies of this book have probably been bought by foreign governments and intelligence agencies than by Russians themselves."
.
The book appeared shortly after North Korean officials admitted that they had a nuclear weapons program.
.
With estimates of his nuclear arsenal ranging up to five bombs, intelligence agencies around the world are gleaning this limited-edition memoir for new clues about the North Korean leader.
.
In power for almost a decade, Kim has given few speeches at home, has rarely traveled outside his isolated country, and has granted no interviews to Western reporters.
.
"I am the object of criticism around the world," Pulikovsky quotes Kim as saying in one meeting on the long train ride. "But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track."
.
For North Korea's government, the most damaging accounts are descriptions of lengthy banquets, jarring tales for a country where as many as 2 million people starved to death during the mid-1990s. Human rights groups contend that the government diverted international food shipments to North Korea's 1.1-million-member military and to families of loyal cadres.
.
In contrast, the Russian wrote, "Kim Jong Il can be called a gourmet."
.
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine," he wrote of the specially outfitted train that carried Kim.
.
The North Koreans made sure that live lobsters were shipped to the train to provide Kim with fresh delicacies during the tedium of crossing Siberia. Cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines were flown from Paris. Even Putin's private train "did not have the comfort of Kim Jong Il's train," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
Impressed with the brown bread at a Khabarovsk restaurant, North Korea's leader had an aide fly 20 loaves to Pyongyang so that it would be fresh on his arrival. On a stop at Omsk, the North Korean rejected a plate of barrel-salted pickles, dismissing the offer as shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria, not prepared in the authentic Russian style.
.
"Then they served tiny pelmeni, kopeck-size, in a small frying pan baked under cheese and mayonnaise," Pulikovsky wrote, recalling crestfallen faces on the Siberian hosts as the Russian meat dumplings arrived. "Kim Jong Il picked at them with a fork and said: 'What kind of pelmeni are these? They should be big, boiled and in broth.'"
.
With meals on the train stretching sometimes for four hours or more, entertainment often took the form of singing Russian and Korean songs. The North Korean leader, who had left his wife back in Pyongyang, particularly enjoyed the charms of four young singers, who were introduced as "lady conductors," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
When his government ministers came into his office, "they bent deferentially in a deep bow and remained like this until there was a hardly visible sign from their commander that they could straighten their backs," he wrote.
.
Taking a skeptical attitude about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, Kim, whose government is skilled at extracting foreign aid, once commented to Pulikovsky, "Many countries just exaggerate their disasters to get more aid from the international community."
.
Some Koreans say that such remarks merely follow a 1,000-year tradition.
.
"Basically, this is a kingdom, and therefore the king is the absolute power," said Suh Dae Sook, a University of Hawaii political science professor whose ancestral village is in northern Korea.
.
Noting that Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Il Sung, became leader of North Korea in 1948, he said, "A monarchical absolute tradition of five centuries will not disappear in 50 years." Russian's tell-all book causes a furor at home

TOKYO President George W. Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by his North Korean government.
.
But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a rare foreigner who has spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong Il is a fun-loving guy.
.
Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks, and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.
.
Called "Orient Express" and published this autumn in Moscow, the 200-page snapshot-laden book prompted a diplomatic protest from North Korea and teeth gnashing in Russia's Foreign Ministry. It draws heavily on a confidential report prepared by a Russian Foreign Ministry note-taker on board during Kim's leisurely one-month train ride across Russia in the summer of 2001. (Kim made a second, shorter train trip into Russia this past summer, also accompanied by Pulikovsky.)
.
"Pulikovsky published what he was not supposed to publish," said Alexandre Mansourov, once a Soviet diplomat in North Korea who now teaches at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
.
"He violated a personal trust, not just of Kim Jong Il, but of the people who put the report together. More copies of this book have probably been bought by foreign governments and intelligence agencies than by Russians themselves."
.
The book appeared shortly after North Korean officials admitted that they had a nuclear weapons program.
.
With estimates of his nuclear arsenal ranging up to five bombs, intelligence agencies around the world are gleaning this limited-edition memoir for new clues about the North Korean leader.
.
In power for almost a decade, Kim has given few speeches at home, has rarely traveled outside his isolated country, and has granted no interviews to Western reporters.
.
"I am the object of criticism around the world," Pulikovsky quotes Kim as saying in one meeting on the long train ride. "But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track."
.
For North Korea's government, the most damaging accounts are descriptions of lengthy banquets, jarring tales for a country where as many as 2 million people starved to death during the mid-1990s. Human rights groups contend that the government diverted international food shipments to North Korea's 1.1-million-member military and to families of loyal cadres.
.
In contrast, the Russian wrote, "Kim Jong Il can be called a gourmet."
.
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine," he wrote of the specially outfitted train that carried Kim.
.
The North Koreans made sure that live lobsters were shipped to the train to provide Kim with fresh delicacies during the tedium of crossing Siberia. Cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines were flown from Paris. Even Putin's private train "did not have the comfort of Kim Jong Il's train," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
Impressed with the brown bread at a Khabarovsk restaurant, North Korea's leader had an aide fly 20 loaves to Pyongyang so that it would be fresh on his arrival. On a stop at Omsk, the North Korean rejected a plate of barrel-salted pickles, dismissing the offer as shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria, not prepared in the authentic Russian style.
.
"Then they served tiny pelmeni, kopeck-size, in a small frying pan baked under cheese and mayonnaise," Pulikovsky wrote, recalling crestfallen faces on the Siberian hosts as the Russian meat dumplings arrived. "Kim Jong Il picked at them with a fork and said: 'What kind of pelmeni are these? They should be big, boiled and in broth.'"
.
With meals on the train stretching sometimes for four hours or more, entertainment often took the form of singing Russian and Korean songs. The North Korean leader, who had left his wife back in Pyongyang, particularly enjoyed the charms of four young singers, who were introduced as "lady conductors," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
When his government ministers came into his office, "they bent deferentially in a deep bow and remained like this until there was a hardly visible sign from their commander that they could straighten their backs," he wrote.
.
Taking a skeptical attitude about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, Kim, whose government is skilled at extracting foreign aid, once commented to Pulikovsky, "Many countries just exaggerate their disasters to get more aid from the international community."
.
Some Koreans say that such remarks merely follow a 1,000-year tradition.
.
"Basically, this is a kingdom, and therefore the king is the absolute power," said Suh Dae Sook, a University of Hawaii political science professor whose ancestral village is in northern Korea.
.
Noting that Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Il Sung, became leader of North Korea in 1948, he said, "A monarchical absolute tradition of five centuries will not disappear in 50 years." Russian's tell-all book causes a furor at home

TOKYO President George W. Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by his North Korean government.
.
But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a rare foreigner who has spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong Il is a fun-loving guy.
.
Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks, and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.
.
Called "Orient Express" and published this autumn in Moscow, the 200-page snapshot-laden book prompted a diplomatic protest from North Korea and teeth gnashing in Russia's Foreign Ministry. It draws heavily on a confidential report prepared by a Russian Foreign Ministry note-taker on board during Kim's leisurely one-month train ride across Russia in the summer of 2001. (Kim made a second, shorter train trip into Russia this past summer, also accompanied by Pulikovsky.)
.
"Pulikovsky published what he was not supposed to publish," said Alexandre Mansourov, once a Soviet diplomat in North Korea who now teaches at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
.
"He violated a personal trust, not just of Kim Jong Il, but of the people who put the report together. More copies of this book have probably been bought by foreign governments and intelligence agencies than by Russians themselves."
.
The book appeared shortly after North Korean officials admitted that they had a nuclear weapons program.
.
With estimates of his nuclear arsenal ranging up to five bombs, intelligence agencies around the world are gleaning this limited-edition memoir for new clues about the North Korean leader.
.
In power for almost a decade, Kim has given few speeches at home, has rarely traveled outside his isolated country, and has granted no interviews to Western reporters.
.
"I am the object of criticism around the world," Pulikovsky quotes Kim as saying in one meeting on the long train ride. "But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track."
.
For North Korea's government, the most damaging accounts are descriptions of lengthy banquets, jarring tales for a country where as many as 2 million people starved to death during the mid-1990s. Human rights groups contend that the government diverted international food shipments to North Korea's 1.1-million-member military and to families of loyal cadres.
.
In contrast, the Russian wrote, "Kim Jong Il can be called a gourmet."
.
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine," he wrote of the specially outfitted train that carried Kim.
.
The North Koreans made sure that live lobsters were shipped to the train to provide Kim with fresh delicacies during the tedium of crossing Siberia. Cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines were flown from Paris. Even Putin's private train "did not have the comfort of Kim Jong Il's train," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
Impressed with the brown bread at a Khabarovsk restaurant, North Korea's leader had an aide fly 20 loaves to Pyongyang so that it would be fresh on his arrival. On a stop at Omsk, the North Korean rejected a plate of barrel-salted pickles, dismissing the offer as shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria, not prepared in the authentic Russian style.
.
"Then they served tiny pelmeni, kopeck-size, in a small frying pan baked under cheese and mayonnaise," Pulikovsky wrote, recalling crestfallen faces on the Siberian hosts as the Russian meat dumplings arrived. "Kim Jong Il picked at them with a fork and said: 'What kind of pelmeni are these? They should be big, boiled and in broth.'"
.


< < Back to Start of Article Russian's tell-all book causes a furor at home

TOKYO President George W. Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by his North Korean government.
.
But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a rare foreigner who has spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong Il is a fun-loving guy.
.
Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks, and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.
.
Called "Orient Express" and published this autumn in Moscow, the 200-page snapshot-laden book prompted a diplomatic protest from North Korea and teeth gnashing in Russia's Foreign Ministry. It draws heavily on a confidential report prepared by a Russian Foreign Ministry note-taker on board during Kim's leisurely one-month train ride across Russia in the summer of 2001. (Kim made a second, shorter train trip into Russia this past summer, also accompanied by Pulikovsky.)
.
"Pulikovsky published what he was not supposed to publish," said Alexandre Mansourov, once a Soviet diplomat in North Korea who now teaches at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
.
"He violated a personal trust, not just of Kim Jong Il, but of the people who put the report together. More copies of this book have probably been bought by foreign governments and intelligence agencies than by Russians themselves."
.
The book appeared shortly after North Korean officials admitted that they had a nuclear weapons program.
.
With estimates of his nuclear arsenal ranging up to five bombs, intelligence agencies around the world are gleaning this limited-edition memoir for new clues about the North Korean leader.
.
In power for almost a decade, Kim has given few speeches at home, has rarely traveled outside his isolated country, and has granted no interviews to Western reporters.
.
"I am the object of criticism around the world," Pulikovsky quotes Kim as saying in one meeting on the long train ride. "But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track."
.
For North Korea's government, the most damaging accounts are descriptions of lengthy banquets, jarring tales for a country where as many as 2 million people starved to death during the mid-1990s. Human rights groups contend that the government diverted international food shipments to North Korea's 1.1-million-member military and to families of loyal cadres.
.
In contrast, the Russian wrote, "Kim Jong Il can be called a gourmet."
.
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine," he wrote of the specially outfitted train that carried Kim.
.
The North Koreans made sure that live lobsters were shipped to the train to provide Kim with fresh delicacies during the tedium of crossing Siberia. Cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines were flown from Paris. Even Putin's private train "did not have the comfort of Kim Jong Il's train," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
Impressed with the brown bread at a Khabarovsk restaurant, North Korea's leader had an aide fly 20 loaves to Pyongyang so that it would be fresh on his arrival. On a stop at Omsk, the North Korean rejected a plate of barrel-salted pickles, dismissing the offer as shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria, not prepared in the authentic Russian style.
.
"Then they served tiny pelmeni, kopeck-size, in a small frying pan baked under cheese and mayonnaise," Pulikovsky wrote, recalling crestfallen faces on the Siberian hosts as the Russian meat dumplings arrived. "Kim Jong Il picked at them with a fork and said: 'What kind of pelmeni are these? They should be big, boiled and in broth.'"
.
With meals on the train stretching sometimes for four hours or more, entertainment often took the form of singing Russian and Korean songs. The North Korean leader, who had left his wife back in Pyongyang, particularly enjoyed the charms of four young singers, who were introduced as "lady conductors," Pulikovsky wrote.
.
When his government ministers came into his office, "they bent deferentially in a deep bow and remained like this until there was a hardly visible sign from their commander that they could straighten their backs," he wrote.
.
Taking a skeptical attitude about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, Kim, whose government is skilled at extracting foreign aid, once commented to Pulikovsky, "Many countries just exaggerate their disasters to get more aid from the international community."
.
Some Koreans say that such remarks merely follow a 1,000-year tradition.
.
"Basically, this is a kingdom, and therefore the king is the absolute power," said Suh Dae Sook, a University of Hawaii political science professor whose ancestral village is in northern Korea.
.
Noting that Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Il Sung, became leader of North Korea in 1948, he said, "A monarchical absolute tradition of five centuries will not disappear in 50 years." Russian's tell-all book causes a furor at home

TOKYO President George W. Bush calls him evil and says he is building nuclear bombs. Japanese officials say his missiles are aimed at Tokyo. Human rights groups say he uses concentration camps to stay in power. Even at the movies, James Bond is being tortured by his North Korean government.
.
But to Konstantin Pulikovsky, a rare foreigner who has spent time with North Korea's secretive leader, Kim Jong Il is a fun-loving guy.
.
Drinking wines imported from France, nibbling on gourmet meals with silver chopsticks, and joining in rousing choruses of old Soviet songs with "beautiful lady conductors," North Korea's remote "Dear Leader" emerges in flesh and blood from the pages of a new memoir by Pulikovsky, the representative of President Vladimir Putin in Russia's Far East.
.
Called "Orient Express" and published this autumn in Moscow, the 200-page snapshot-laden book prompted a diplomatic protest from North Korea and teeth gnashing in Russia's Foreign Ministry. It draws heavily on a confidential report prepared by a Russian Foreign Ministry note-taker on board during Kim's leisurely one-month train ride across Russia in the summer of 2001. (Kim made a second, shorter train trip into Russia this past summer, also accompanied by Pulikovsky.)
.
"Pulikovsky published what he was not supposed to publish," said Alexandre Mansourov, once a Soviet diplomat in North Korea who now teaches at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu.
.
"He violated a personal trust, not just of Kim Jong Il, but of the people who put the report together. More copies of this book have probably been bought by foreign governments and intelligence agencies than by Russians themselves."
.
The book appeared shortly after North Korean officials admitted that they had a nuclear weapons program.
.
With estimates of his nuclear arsenal ranging up to five bombs, intelligence agencies around the world are gleaning this limited-edition memoir for new clues about the North Korean leader.
.
In power for almost a decade, Kim has given few speeches at home, has rarely traveled outside his isolated country, and has granted no interviews to Western reporters.
.
"I am the object of criticism around the world," Pulikovsky quotes Kim as saying in one meeting on the long train ride. "But I think that since I am being discussed, then I am on the right track."
.
For North Korea's government, the most damaging accounts are descriptions of lengthy banquets, jarring tales for a country where as many as 2 million people starved to death during the mid-1990s. Human rights groups contend that the government diverted international food shipments to North Korea's 1.1-million-member military and to families of loyal cadres.
.
In contrast, the Russian wrote, "Kim Jong Il can be called a gourmet."
.
"It was possible to order any dish of Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and French cuisine," he wrote of the specially outfitted train that carried Kim.
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The North Koreans made sure that live lobsters were shipped to the train to provide Kim with fresh delicacies during the tedium of crossing Siberia. Cases of Bordeaux and Burgundy red wines were flown from Paris. Even Putin's private train "did not have the comfort of Kim Jong Il's train," Pulikovsky wrote.
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Impressed with the brown bread at a Khabarovsk restaurant, North Korea's leader had an aide fly 20 loaves to Pyongyang so that it would be fresh on his arrival. On a stop at Omsk, the North Korean rejected a plate of barrel-salted pickles, dismissing the offer as shoddily marinated cucumbers from Bulgaria, not prepared in the authentic Russian style.
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"Then they served tiny pelmeni, kopeck-size, in a small frying pan baked under cheese and mayonnaise," Pulikovsky wrote, recalling crestfallen faces on the Siberian hosts as the Russian meat dumplings arrived. "Kim Jong Il picked at them with a fork and said: 'What kind of pelmeni are these? They should be big, boiled and in broth.'"
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With meals on the train stretching sometimes for four hours or more, entertainment often took the form of singing Russian and Korean songs. The North Korean leader, who had left his wife back in Pyongyang, particularly enjoyed the charms of four young singers, who were introduced as "lady conductors," Pulikovsky wrote.
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When his government ministers came into his office, "they bent deferentially in a deep bow and remained like this until there was a hardly visible sign from their commander that they could straighten their backs," he wrote.
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Taking a skeptical attitude about the AIDS epidemic in Africa, Kim, whose government is skilled at extracting foreign aid, once commented to Pulikovsky, "Many countries just exaggerate their disasters to get more aid from the international community."
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Some Koreans say that such remarks merely follow a 1,000-year tradition.
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"Basically, this is a kingdom, and therefore the king is the absolute power," said Suh Dae Sook, a University of Hawaii political science professor whose ancestral village is in northern Korea.
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Noting that Kim Jong Il's father, Kim Il Sung, became leader of North Korea in 1948, he said, "A monarchical absolute tradition of five centuries will not disappear in 50 years."