There are places on the face of the earth where, although the sun may occasionally shine, they’ve never seen a ray of light.  There’s a cold dry Siberian no man’s land that extends east from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific coast, where small villages no one’s ever heard of, with names no one can pronounce, exist in lonely isolation.

Vyatskoye, Russia, in eastern Siberia is one of those villages.

When Kim Jong-il took in his first breath in 1941, it was of the frosty air of Vyatskoye.  His father, Kim Il-sung, was captain in the Soviet Red Army of a battalion of Korean and Chinese guerrillas stationed there.  Legend has it, upon his first gasp, the coldness instantly chilled over his infant mind, body, and soul.  To his death last Friday, they were never to thaw again.

There is something curiously fitting that destiny selected this moment for Kim Jong-il to step into the world.  No doubt, things were a little up in the cool air at the time.  The prospect that Germany and Japan could take over the Eurasian continent was still a real possibility.  Hitching Korea’s future to the coattails of Russia and China must have been the rational thing for the elder Kim to do.  For the younger Kim, this decision eventually led to his absolute power and rule over his North Korean countrymen. Continue reading →