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The dispatching of loggers is based on a 1967 agreement between North Korea and Russia on logging and general timber processing within Russian territory. North Korea provides labor and Russia the equipment and wages. Timber camps spread Far East, around Habarovsk and Tynda. Starting with 3,500, the number of loggers dispatched to Russia increased, and is now estimated to be around 20,000. Tynda is known to have 14 timber camps but the total number in Russia is unknown.
Logging was once a popular job in North Korea. It paid an annual salary 100 times higher the average earned by workers in North Korea. Competition was fierce and it was widely thought that bribing government officials was necessary. Applicants were required to be college graduates and have families and kids because they needed to learn Russian quickly and the North Korean regime wanted to use their families as bait to prevent them escaping.
The North Korean government received money for loggers in cash from Russia then paid them in vouchers. The loggers sent the vouchers back home or returned home with them. However, North Korea's economic crisis in the 1990s saw the vouchers' value evaporate. Fugitive loggers complained, "The nation robbed our money and repaid us in vouchers. That was how the exodus of loggers began."
Loggers wander all over Russia to come to Moscow in search of liberty. Hiding their true identities, they are occupied with laborious daily work, like construction work, simply to make ends meet. Some still send part of their earnings home via North Koreans dispatched to construction sites in large cities. Half of the money is charged in fees before it reaches their families. Some 5,000 to 10,000 North Korean loggers that escaped from timber camps are currently believed to be living all over Russia.
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