Kumsusan Palace-like archive in Harbin suspected of illegal land grab

The Heilongjiang Highway Archive, resembling Kumsusan Palace of the Sun of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, is located in the Liujiacun Village of Harbin. (Photo: the Paper)

The farmland requistioned from local villagers is fenced off. (Photo: the Paper)

(ECNS) – A new archive in Harbin, Heilongjiang province that resembles Kumsusan Palace of the Sun of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) is suspected of illegally requisitioning land, the Paper reports.

Construction of the Heilongjiang Highway Archives project, located in Liujiacun Village, began in 2011 and was finished in 2013. According to its official website, the archive covers an area of 6,000 square meters.

But Zhou Zhaoxing, a local villager whose land was requisitioned for the project, said it occupies over 100,000 square meters of land without formal approval.

Villagers asked local authorities for the archive's land requisition certification last year, but were refused. Not long after, fruit trees of three households on the land were deliberately damaged on October 21, causing losses of millions of yuan, Zhou said.

Only 11,000 square meters of land were officially approved for the archive and a highway service zone, said Zhou, who was told that approval for the rest of the land was still pending.

As of Monday, a reporter with the Paper had asked several local departments about the approval but got no answers.

The Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, located in DPRK's capital Pyongyang, serves as the mausoleum for the country's late presidents Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il.