Vladimir Putin travel tips

A group of Russian schoolchildren will attend a summer camp in North Korea at the end of July.

A North Korean tourism advert with low production values, near-empty beaches and cloudy skies has caught the internet’s attention.

About 100 Russians flew to North Korea on Friday for a private tour, becoming the first foreign group to visit the reclusive state following the Covid-19 pandemic in a landmark trip summed up by the Russian embassy as “Pyongyang opens its door.”

North Korea will welcome its first foreign tourists since closing its borders during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to news reports, a hint the isolated nation may be considering a revival of its small tourism industry amid growing tensions on the international stage.

This year has been a good one for Vilnius. The Lithuanian capital celebrated its 700th birthday on 25 January 2023, and a few months later it was named the European Union’s green capital for 2025. Perhaps most symbolically – as Lithuania continues to firmly reject its Soviet past and align itself closer with the west – Vilnius played host to the Nato summit in July.