"I didn't go to Europe," he begins, calling the continent "slick, outworn by satiation and its failure to understand modern problems, with its supermarkets, museums, its loafing tourist crowds on the streets."
"I went to North Korea, to Pyongyang."
"This small and mysterious country, this terra incognita that has existed on the border of my motherland for many years already."
Some amazing footage of Pyongyang airs as Prokhanov speaks his thoughts, although it's not clear quite when it's from. This scene appears to capture a street fight? Prokhanov takes no notice.
"So many clouds of lies, slander and incomprehension have condensed over North Korea," Prokhanov says. "The West, America, treat her like an outlaw country, like a small monster country..."
"A country where blood is endlessly flowing, a country that destroys all signs and principles of human existence. They demonize it, and prepare it for a strike, for extermination."
"I wanted to cross this border and understand what neighbors we co-exist with in the far east."
What he found amazed him: a "wonderfully planned city" with "a huge number of tall buildings, almost skyscrapers!," wide boulevards with trees and flowers, plazas "filled with air" and surrounded by palaces.
He becomes, quite literally, breathless.
(Some of the footage is truly amazing.)
"You might think I fell into heaven on earth." But then — a twist! "No," Prokhanov says. "It's a very harsh, strict regime." He notes the limits on internet and a free press, says he had officials with him at all times, probably intelligence officers.
"This can shock you," Prokhanov says. "It can surprise you. It can cause protest. But," Prokhanov says, "don't rush with that." Because, you see, the North Korean regime does it all for a reason.
And that's something Russia needs to understand. "Today, as Russia is living through pressure from the West, when sanctions are being strengthened, when business contacts are torn up — of course we look to the East."
"It’s very important for us to understand this country, understand its people, understand the psychology of the authorities, understand its mysterious philosophy."
Just before leaving North Korea, Prokhanov says he met with Kim Jong-Un's 86-year-old right-hand man and asked: Why did you support us at a UN meeting discussing Russia's decision to annex Crimea?
The official, Kim Yong-Nam, answered: "We think that Russian people live in Crimea, and we think that all Russian people should live together."
