Scenes From a Neighbor

Only 27 miles north of embattled Seoul, across the 38th parallel, is another Korea, in every sense an opposite to the turbulent, economically dynamic South. Hunkered behind miles of barbed wire and minefields, Communist North Korea is a constant, sometimes threatening presence in South Korean life. Spartan, plodding, more regimented than all but a few other Communist nations, it seems to act with one corporate mind. That mind belongs to Kim Il Sung, 75, the "Great Leader" who has been whipping North Korea into a model Communist state for 39 years. Kim's stable despotism is backed by an 885,000-strong army, navy and air force, the world's sixth largest fighting force.

Ever since the three-year conflict that left more than 1 million Koreans , and Americans dead, every stress and strain in relations between North and South has carried the possibility of another conflagration. The latest tensions surround North Korea's ongoing construction of a huge dam just north of the 151-mile Demilitarized Zone. South Koreans are convinced that, once completed, the dam will pose a major danger to Seoul. They fear that it will either collapse because of poor workmanship or, in a darker view, be deliberately burst by the Communists, perhaps as a prelude to invasion or in an attempt to disrupt the upcoming Olympics. In response, the South Koreans have begun construction of a countervailing "peace dam" that would trap any released waters and send them back north.

South Korean suspicions about the North are matched only by uncertainties about the country's future after the Great Leader dies. Kim's eldest son, Kim Jong Il, 46, has been designated as his father's political heir, but there have been rumbles of discord within the North Korean Communist Party about the succession. Until the senior Kim dies, little is likely to change. His portrait peers from virtually every room in every home, office, school and hotel, and his statue decorates most corners. In the streets, North Koreans keep their conversations to a murmur and move at a uniform pace. As the following images show, French Photographer Yann Layma found Kim's kingdom to be a place frozen in time, in ideology and in its prospects.