The city of Vladivostok, the administrative center of the huge (and sparsely populated) Primorsky Krai region, sits in the close vicinity of Russia’s border with Korea and China.

As the crow flies, just 130 km away is the railway bridge which connects Russian and North Korea. Given both the peculiarities of the local geography and the sorry (albeit improved) state of the local roads, the car trip would take about four hours – still a rather short drive by the standards of eastern Russia.

One would expect that in such environment the “Korean factor” would be much felt in the