Taken on April 22, 2007, this photo shows the square in front of the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, where North Korean founding father Kim Il-Sung lies in state
Built in 1976 and named the Kumsusan Assembly Hall, this massive structure was the official residence of Kim Il Sung—North Korea’s founder and first president. At the time of his death in 1994, his son Kim Jong Il spent an estimated $100 million converting it into a mausoleum. It’s as eccentric as you’d expect. Inside, visitors travel on moving walkways, walk past bronze statues that depict people grieving, listen to narrations of grief and pass through a machine that blows dust. At the end of their journey they see Kim’s remains in a glass sarcophagus. Kumsusan Memorial Palace is reportedly the world’s largest mausoleum devoted to a communist leader.