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Jutting out of a cold, dank city fog, a massive triangular monolith erupts from the skyline.

The city of boxy, concrete apartment blocks below can't match up to the sheer size of this bizarrely shaped building, which reaches 1,083 feet into the sky.

Despite its foreboding appearance, it's actually a hotel that's a little taller than France's Eiffel Tower or New York's Chrysler Building.

With 3.9 million square feet of usable floor space and 3,000 rooms, it's big enough to rival some of the largest hotels in the world.

It was even designed to include casinos and nightclubs, so you'd think it'd be bustling with life.

But despite its shiny facade, this hotel has never welcomed a single guest and has actually laid empty for almost 30 years.

With all that information, can you guess where this incredibly creepy hotel is?

Well, brace yourself, because I promise you're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you.

Well, that would make sense, being the superpowers that they are.

But no, this hotel is actually in 1 of the most repressive countries on Earth.

Yep, this is the Ryugyong Hotel, found in the country's capital of Pyongyang.

For those who don't know, North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is ruled by the socialist dictatorship of the Kim family.

Since 1948, 3 generations of the Kim bloodline have ruled the country with absolute authority, with its military-first policies and oppressive regime, making it many enemies around the world.

For these reasons, North Korea doesn't have the best trading or tourism relationships with other countries, so they only receive about

It may sound like a lot, but compared to South Korea's 17.5 million,

So why would they ever need a 3,000-room hotel?

To understand that, we need to hop in our time machine and rewind all the way back to

However, this time machine relies on the YouTube currency of likes and subscribes, so if you haven't already, be sure to hit those buttons down below.

The Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union was still raging and this extended over to Korea.

The North backed the Soviets, but the South backed the US, making them less than friendly neighbors.

But this war was fought with perceived strength rather than battles, and South Korea wasn't afraid to show off.

a South Korean firm backed the construction of the Stamford Hotel in Singapore, the tallest hotel in the world at the time.

The South was also getting ready to host the 1988 Olympics, which was a huge democratic middle finger to North Korea.

But instead of getting mad, North Korea decided to get even.

World Festival of Youth and Students, which was a kind of socialist version of the Olympics.

To accommodate the 22,000 participants, Pyongyang's airport was extended.

They built a brand new 150,000-seat stadium and began construction of the 3,000-room Rugong Hotel.

At 105 stories high, It'd steal the title of tallest hotel away from the South and put North Korea on the map.

Not only that, but there are only 21 buildings in the world today boasting more than 100 floors.

So this was a serious show of strength for the time.

It was a big task though, because North Korea didn't have access to a lot of advanced construction materials, such as steel, so they'd have to make do with what they had plenty of, concrete.

But without enough steel reinforcement, concrete isn't structurally sound enough to make massive skyscrapers, which is why it was designed as a set of 3 wings, each inclined by 75 degrees, that rose from a wide base to a tapered top.

They'd converge at the top 15 floors, which would house world-class restaurants, 1 of which would revolve, along with several observation decks.

If all went well, this was going to be the jewel in North Korea's architectural crown.

But that would turn out to be 1 really big if.

They claimed engineering issues had set the project back, but that it would open in 1992 to celebrate the Supreme Leader Kim Il-sung's 80th birthday instead.

However, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and by 1992, North Korea's economy had tanked.

The project was halted due to lack of funds, leaving an unfinished, ugly concrete pyramid haunting Pyongyang's Skyline.

Not exactly the birthday gift Kim Il-sung was hoping for.

To make matters worse, Japanese papers revealed the building had cost North Korea a staggering

At the time, this was a whopping 2% of their GDP.

Man, everything that could go wrong had gone wrong.

And like any good curse, it was going to last for quite a while.

For 16 years the uncompleted structure remained with no windows, fixtures, or fittings.

Even the rusty old construction cranes stuck at its peak became too corroded to use.

They could have demolished the structure but that would have shown the rest of the world that they didn't have the finances or power to finish what they'd started.

So with demolition off the table, they had no choice but to leave the newly nicknamed Hotel of Doom alone.

But the government was so embarrassed by the unfinished landmark that there were reports of officials airbrushing it out of the skyline in photos.

Large celebrations saw the structure used as part of some impressive firework displays.

But still, if you're going to spend 2% of your country's entire GDP on something, do you really want it to be a glorified Roman candle?

But then, in 2008, under the reign of Kim Jong-il, construction started again.

The North Korean government had made an investment deal with the Egyptian company Oriscom, who were also paid to provide the country with a 3G network.

They laughed in the face of the cursed claims and struck a deal worth

million, $180 million of which would go towards finishing the hotel.

And let's be fair, there's no 1 better at building pyramids than the Egyptians.

of the European Chamber of Commerce, who'd been granted access to the construction site, claimed it was in an irreparable state.

The masonry was crumbling, the elevator shafts were crooked, and the construction materials used were substandard at best.

Nevertheless, the brand new opening date of the Ryugyong was announced for 2012, just in time to mark the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's eternal reign.

It looked like the curse was finally lifting.

By 2011, the exterior was finally complete.

Glass panels were installed on the outside, giving it a super modern and sleek appearance.

But bizarrely, the inside was nowhere near finished.

the year of its supposed opening, a group of tourists were granted a one-time visit to the heart of the hotel.

If they were expecting the inside to match the outside, then they would have been sorely disappointed.

Vast expanses made of hard, cold concrete greeted them from every angle, without any furnishings, fittings, or furniture.

It wasn't even hooked up to the main power grid.

At least the view from the top didn't disappoint.

Even so, it was clear it would take a miracle for the Ruegang to be open by the end of the year.

German luxury hotel group Kempinski surprisingly announced that Ruegang would partially open under its management in mid-2013.

This would be a little late to celebrate that all-important 100th anniversary, but by this point I bet the North Korean government just wanted to get this thing finished.

However, The curse struck again a few months later when, without warning, Kempinski pulled out of the deal.

The brand new Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, had been conducting a lot of threatening nuclear tests, which led to hefty sanctions of luxury import items being placed on North Korea.

For Kempinski, being unable to get luxury items into their luxury hotel put a huge dampener on this big deal, so they quickly and quietly walked away.

There were also rumors that Kempinski didn't trust the hotel's structural integrity, which would turn out to be with good reason.

In 2014, a 23 floor apartment building in Pyongyang suddenly collapsed, with around 92 families believed to have tragically perished in the accident.

The state media reported that construction had, ahem, not been done properly.

Not exactly what anyone looking to invest in a hotel in the area would want to hear.

So, with Kim's nuclear maneuver and Pyongyang's construction crisis scaring away the foreign investors, the hotel remained untouched for a further 3 years.

years after construction first started on this economy-breaking hotel, it still wasn't open.

A brief flurry of activity was seen in 2016, with several rooms at the very top spotted with lights on.

Many doubted it would ever open its doors, while others wondered if it was secretly being converted into something else, like an evil lair or maybe a huge indoor water park.

Well, whatever they thought, it's still closed.

the very top of the hotel suddenly burst into color.

Like a bright red beacon in the darkness, the North Korean flag was beaming from the hotel's pyramid top.

A few months later, and the entire front face of the Ryugong also started to light up at night, with a variety of images and short, repeating videos.

This soon became a huge, beaming propaganda machine in the evenings, displaying a looping four-minute program with a variety of political slogans, while the cone at the top projected a huge North Korean flag.

Apparently, it still lights up every evening between 7pm and 10pm.

But out in the dark like that, it kind of resembles the ever-watchful eye of Sauron.

As if North Korea wasn't like Mordor enough already.

I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple of hobbits nearby asking for directions to the nearest volcano.

Where exactly did this giant light display come from?

made up of more than 100,000 LEDs had been covertly installed and financed by Oriscom.

Man, these guys really know how to make a dank pyramid.

Now you might be wondering, why on 2 occasions has Oriscom offered to help build a hotel when their deal was mainly for 3G network coverage?

Well if you take a close look at the Ruegang, it turns out the top of the hotel has some sort of signal tower, which I'm willing to guess belongs to Oriscom.

While some elements of the deal were kept private, they did reveal that they'd invested even more money into the hotel, which will apparently be repaid when it becomes operational.

Although the when part of that poses a bit of a problem, because the government hasn't put an opening day for the hotel in their calendars.

In 2019, a new sign was optimistically posted above the main entrance, but since then, the doors have remained firmly shut.

So instead of stealing the crown of the world's tallest hotel from South Korea, as it was intended to all those years ago, it's now listed as the world's largest unoccupied building in the Guinness World Records.

Now, Maybe I'm missing something here, but wouldn't covering a hotel in lights so bright that they can be seen across a city be really distracting to any future guests staying in those rooms?

Also, wouldn't the money they spent on the fancy light wall have been better spent, I don't know, completing the inside of the building.

With all that being said, it really doesn't seem like the government has any plans to open this as a functioning hotel, despite the sign over the door.

Maybe they realized the interior decoration costs would be way too expensive, especially considering how few visitors the country actually gets on a yearly basis.

And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Well, if it isn't going to open its doors in the near future, I can think of a few better things it can be used for other than propaganda.

I mean, I don't know about you, but imagine watching a movie on this thing, or playing a few games of Mario Kart on the 105 story bad boy.

Have you got any other idea what it could be used for?

Now despite the jokes, there's actually a dark undercurrent we haven't explored of the Ruegang yet.

Now that 750 million dollar figure may not seem like much considering skyscrapers like London's Shard or Dubai's Burj Khalifa cost around

But the thing is, most citizens of North Korea live in abject poverty.

Recent reports suggest that citizens of this harsh regime earn just 4% of the average South Koreans income.

Even though the country's economic growth rate is improving, experts believe that the average North Korean's income is dwindling.

This is because the rulers of the Hermit Kingdom are more focused on spending money on things such as military, nuclear weaponry, and weirdly ostentatious infrastructure.

This boosts their perceived power and dominance to the outside world at the cost of their people.

I mean if the US turned around and claimed it wanted to spend 2% of its GDP on a hotel, there'd be outrage.

Now granted, America's GDP is significantly higher than North Korea's at approximately $21 trillion, but 2% of that is $420 billion.

For that, they could build the 1 World Center

They could probably turn all of Central Park into 1 huge skyscraper.

I mean, it would certainly send a message to the rest of the world, but I don't think the citizens of the US would be too happy about it.

Especially if it remained totally empty afterwards.

Okay, that aside, if you were ever to visit North Korea, what would a hotel stay in the least welcoming country in the world actually look like?

Well, there are about 8 functioning hotels in Pyongyang, and they're all quite eerily similar.

The decor is reminiscent of the 1950s and 60s.

The dining rooms are huge and mostly vacant.

The stairwells and hallways are dark, power cuts are frequent, they hardly sound inviting.

But the strangest thing by far is the little Enigma machines built into the bedside tables.

Maybe they're a part of the phone system or radio?

I'll take your best guess because I don't think I'll ever be brave enough to visit and find out.

So, do you think the Rugong Hotel will ever open?

Or have you ever actually been to North Korea and seen it with your own eyes?

Let me know down in the comments below and thanks for watching!


Speaker 0: Jutting out of a cold, dank city fog, a massive triangular monolith erupts from the skyline.

Speaker 1: The city of boxy, concrete apartment blocks below can't match up to the sheer size of this bizarrely shaped building, which reaches 1,083 feet into the sky. Despite its foreboding appearance, it's actually a hotel that's a little taller than France's Eiffel Tower or New York's Chrysler Building. With 3.9 million square feet of usable floor space and 3,000 rooms, it's big enough to rival some of the largest hotels in the world.

Speaker 2: It was even designed to include casinos and nightclubs, so you'd think it'd be bustling with life. But despite its shiny facade, this hotel has never welcomed a single guest and has actually laid empty for almost 30 years. With all that information, can you guess where this incredibly creepy hotel is? Well, brace yourself, because I promise you're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you. So did you guess some place in America?

Maybe a forgotten city in Russia?

Speaker 1: Perhaps China?

Speaker 2: Well, that would make sense, being the superpowers that they are. But no, this hotel is actually in 1 of the most repressive countries on Earth. North Korea. Yep, this is the Ryugyong Hotel, found in the country's capital of Pyongyang. For those who don't know, North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK, is ruled by the socialist dictatorship of the Kim family.

Since 1948, 3 generations of the Kim bloodline have ruled the country with absolute authority, with its military-first policies and oppressive regime, making it many enemies around the world. For these reasons, North Korea doesn't have the best trading or tourism relationships with other countries, so they only receive about

Speaker 0: 300,000

Speaker 2: foreign visitors a year. It may sound like a lot, but compared to South Korea's 17.5 million,

Speaker 1: it's hardly

Speaker 2: a drop in the ocean. So why would they ever need a 3,000-room hotel? To understand that, we need to hop in our time machine and rewind all the way back to

Speaker 0: 1986.

Speaker 2: However, this time machine relies on the YouTube currency of likes and subscribes, so if you haven't already, be sure to hit those buttons down below. All done? Great. Now let's get our time travel on. Here

Speaker 1: we are,

Speaker 0: 1986.

Speaker 2: The Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union was still raging and this extended over to Korea. The North backed the Soviets, but the South backed the US, making them less than friendly neighbors. But this war was fought with perceived strength rather than battles, and South Korea wasn't afraid to show off. In

Speaker 0: 1986,

Speaker 2: a South Korean firm backed the construction of the Stamford Hotel in Singapore, the tallest hotel in the world at the time. The South was also getting ready to host the 1988 Olympics, which was a huge democratic middle finger to North Korea. But instead of getting mad, North Korea decided to get even. They organized the

Speaker 0: 1989

Speaker 2: World Festival of Youth and Students, which was a kind of socialist version of the Olympics. To accommodate the 22,000 participants, Pyongyang's airport was extended. They built a brand new 150,000-seat stadium and began construction of the 3,000-room Rugong Hotel. At 105 stories high, It'd steal the title of tallest hotel away from the South and put North Korea on the map. Not only that, but there are only 21 buildings in the world today boasting more than 100 floors.

So this was a serious show of strength for the time. It was a big task though, because North Korea didn't have access to a lot of advanced construction materials, such as steel, so they'd have to make do with what they had plenty of, concrete. But without enough steel reinforcement, concrete isn't structurally sound enough to make massive skyscrapers, which is why it was designed as a set of 3 wings, each inclined by 75 degrees, that rose from a wide base to a tapered top. They'd converge at the top 15 floors, which would house world-class restaurants, 1 of which would revolve, along with several observation decks. If all went well, this was going to be the jewel in North Korea's architectural crown.

But that would turn out to be 1 really big if. Construction began in

Speaker 0: 1987,

Speaker 2: but when the festival rolled around in

Speaker 0: 1989,

Speaker 2: the hotel was nowhere near finished. They claimed engineering issues had set the project back, but that it would open in 1992 to celebrate the Supreme Leader Kim Il-sung's 80th birthday instead. However, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and by 1992, North Korea's economy had tanked. The project was halted due to lack of funds, leaving an unfinished, ugly concrete pyramid haunting Pyongyang's Skyline. Not exactly the birthday gift Kim Il-sung was hoping for.

To make matters worse, Japanese papers revealed the building had cost North Korea a staggering

Speaker 0: $750

Speaker 2: million to build. At the time, this was a whopping 2% of their GDP. Man, everything that could go wrong had gone wrong. It was as if the project was cursed. And like any good curse, it was going to last for quite a while.

For 16 years the uncompleted structure remained with no windows, fixtures, or fittings. Even the rusty old construction cranes stuck at its peak became too corroded to use. They could have demolished the structure but that would have shown the rest of the world that they didn't have the finances or power to finish what they'd started. So with demolition off the table, they had no choice but to leave the newly nicknamed Hotel of Doom alone. But the government was so embarrassed by the unfinished landmark that there were reports of officials airbrushing it out of the skyline in photos.

It wasn't completely abandoned, though. Large celebrations saw the structure used as part of some impressive firework displays. But still, if you're going to spend 2% of your country's entire GDP on something, do you really want it to be a glorified Roman candle? But then, in 2008, under the reign of Kim Jong-il, construction started again.

Speaker 1: The North Korean government had made an investment deal with the Egyptian company Oriscom, who were also paid to provide the country with a 3G network. They laughed in the face of the cursed claims and struck a deal worth

Speaker 0: $400

Speaker 1: million, $180 million of which would go towards finishing the hotel. And let's be fair, there's no 1 better at building pyramids than the Egyptians. However,

Speaker 2: Back in the 1990s, a visiting member

Speaker 1: of the European Chamber of Commerce, who'd been granted access to the construction site, claimed it was in an irreparable state. The masonry was crumbling, the elevator shafts were crooked, and the construction materials used were substandard at best. Nevertheless, the brand new opening date of the Ryugyong was announced for 2012, just in time to mark the 100th anniversary of Kim Il-sung's eternal reign. It looked like the curse was finally lifting. By 2011, the exterior was finally complete.

Glass panels were installed on the outside, giving it a super modern and sleek appearance. But bizarrely, the inside was nowhere near finished. In

Speaker 0: 2012,

Speaker 1: the year of its supposed opening, a group of tourists were granted a one-time visit to the heart of the hotel. If they were expecting the inside to match the outside, then they would have been sorely disappointed. Vast expanses made of hard, cold concrete greeted them from every angle, without any furnishings, fittings, or furniture. It wasn't even hooked up to the main power grid. At least the view from the top didn't disappoint.

Even so, it was clear it would take a miracle for the Ruegang to be open by the end of the year. In late

Speaker 0: 2012,

Speaker 1: German luxury hotel group Kempinski surprisingly announced that Ruegang would partially open under its management in mid-2013. This would be a little late to celebrate that all-important 100th anniversary, but by this point I bet the North Korean government just wanted to get this thing finished. However, The curse struck again a few months later when, without warning, Kempinski pulled out of the deal. The brand new Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, had been conducting a lot of threatening nuclear tests, which led to hefty sanctions of luxury import items being placed on North Korea. For Kempinski, being unable to get luxury items into their luxury hotel put a huge dampener on this big deal, so they quickly and quietly walked away.

There were also rumors that Kempinski didn't trust the hotel's structural integrity, which would turn out to be with good reason. In 2014, a 23 floor apartment building in Pyongyang suddenly collapsed, with around 92 families believed to have tragically perished in the accident. The state media reported that construction had, ahem, not been done properly. Not exactly what anyone looking to invest in a hotel in the area would want to hear. So, with Kim's nuclear maneuver and Pyongyang's construction crisis scaring away the foreign investors, the hotel remained untouched for a further 3 years.

By

Speaker 0: 2017, 30

Speaker 1: years after construction first started on this economy-breaking hotel, it still wasn't open. A brief flurry of activity was seen in 2016, with several rooms at the very top spotted with lights on. But the Hotel of Doom remained shut. Many doubted it would ever open its doors, while others wondered if it was secretly being converted into something else, like an evil lair or maybe a huge indoor water park. Well, whatever they thought, it's still closed.

But then, 1 night in

Speaker 0: 2018,

Speaker 1: the very top of the hotel suddenly burst into color. Like a bright red beacon in the darkness, the North Korean flag was beaming from the hotel's pyramid top. A few months later, and the entire front face of the Ryugong also started to light up at night, with a variety of images and short, repeating videos. This soon became a huge, beaming propaganda machine in the evenings, displaying a looping four-minute program with a variety of political slogans, while the cone at the top projected a huge North Korean flag. Apparently, it still lights up every evening between 7pm and 10pm.

But out in the dark like that, it kind of resembles the ever-watchful eye of Sauron. As if North Korea wasn't like Mordor enough already. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple of hobbits nearby asking for directions to the nearest volcano. But hang on, back up. Where exactly did this giant light display come from?

Speaker 2: It turns out that a huge light wall

Speaker 1: made up of more than 100,000 LEDs had been covertly installed and financed by Oriscom. Man, these guys really know how to make a dank pyramid. Now you might be wondering, why on 2 occasions has Oriscom offered to help build a hotel when their deal was mainly for 3G network coverage? Well if you take a close look at the Ruegang, it turns out the top of the hotel has some sort of signal tower, which I'm willing to guess belongs to Oriscom. While some elements of the deal were kept private, they did reveal that they'd invested even more money into the hotel, which will apparently be repaid when it becomes operational.

Although the when part of that poses a bit of a problem, because the government hasn't put an opening day for the hotel in their calendars. In 2019, a new sign was optimistically posted above the main entrance, but since then, the doors have remained firmly shut. So instead of stealing the crown of the world's tallest hotel from South Korea, as it was intended to all those years ago, it's now listed as the world's largest unoccupied building in the Guinness World Records. Or should that be Kim Jong Unoccupied?

Speaker 0: I'll see myself out for that 1.

Speaker 1: Now, Maybe I'm missing something here, but wouldn't covering a hotel in lights so bright that they can be seen across a city be really distracting to any future guests staying in those rooms? Also, wouldn't the money they spent on the fancy light wall have been better spent, I don't know, completing the inside of the building. With all that being said, it really doesn't seem like the government has any plans to open this as a functioning hotel, despite the sign over the door. Maybe they realized the interior decoration costs would be way too expensive, especially considering how few visitors the country actually gets on a yearly basis. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Well, if it isn't going to open its doors in the near future, I can think of a few better things it can be used for other than propaganda. I mean, I don't know about you, but imagine watching a movie on this thing, or playing a few games of Mario Kart on the 105 story bad boy. Have you got any other idea what it could be used for? Let me know down in the comments. Now despite the jokes, there's actually a dark undercurrent we haven't explored of the Ruegang yet.

Its price tag. Now that 750 million dollar figure may not seem like much considering skyscrapers like London's Shard or Dubai's Burj Khalifa cost around

Speaker 0: $1.5

Speaker 1: billion to build each. But the thing is, most citizens of North Korea live in abject poverty. Recent reports suggest that citizens of this harsh regime earn just 4% of the average South Koreans income.

Speaker 2: That's a little

Speaker 1: over $99 a month. Even though the country's economic growth rate is improving, experts believe that the average North Korean's income is dwindling. This is because the rulers of the Hermit Kingdom are more focused on spending money on things such as military, nuclear weaponry, and weirdly ostentatious infrastructure. This boosts their perceived power and dominance to the outside world at the cost of their people. I mean if the US turned around and claimed it wanted to spend 2% of its GDP on a hotel, there'd be outrage.

Now granted, America's GDP is significantly higher than North Korea's at approximately $21 trillion, but 2% of that is $420 billion. For that, they could build the 1 World Center

Speaker 0: 1,335

Speaker 1: times over. They could probably turn all of Central Park into 1 huge skyscraper. I mean, it would certainly send a message to the rest of the world, but I don't think the citizens of the US would be too happy about it. Especially if it remained totally empty afterwards. What a waste of money and space.

Okay, that aside, if you were ever to visit North Korea, what would a hotel stay in the least welcoming country in the world actually look like? Well, there are about 8 functioning hotels in Pyongyang, and they're all quite eerily similar. The decor is reminiscent of the 1950s and 60s. The dining rooms are huge and mostly vacant. The stairwells and hallways are dark, power cuts are frequent, they hardly sound inviting.

But the strangest thing by far is the little Enigma machines built into the bedside tables. Maybe they're a part of the phone system or radio? What do you think they are? I'll take your best guess because I don't think I'll ever be brave enough to visit and find out. So, do you think the Rugong Hotel will ever open?

Or have you ever actually been to North Korea and seen it with your own eyes? Let me know down in the comments below and thanks for watching!

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The CURSED Hotel That’s Never Had A Single Guest