Oddity Central

Loyal Dog Refuses to Leave Hospital Where His Owner Died Eight Months Ago
Pyongyang Cafe – A Small Piece of North Korea on the Spanish Coast
Shoyna – The Russian Village Fighting a Losing Battle against Sand

Loyal Dog Refuses to Leave Hospital Where His Owner Died Eight Months Ago

Posted: 09 Aug 2016 11:14 AM PDT

Ever since his owner was taken to the Ruth Cardoso Hospital in Santa Catarina, Brazil, a young black dog named Negão has been patiently waiting outside the building for him to walk out. Even though the man died of sepsis soon after his admission, the story of Negão’s loyalty has touched the heart of millions around the world.

It all started late last year when the dog’s owner, a homeless man, was taken to the hospital after developing an infection that would later prove fatal. Medical staff reported that Negão ran alongside the ambulance all the way to the hospital, watched his favorite human be carried inside and waited outside for his return. He has been waiting outside the building ever since, not knowing that the eagerly awaited reunion with his owner will never happen. Every time an ambulance arrives, the dog’s ears perk up and he follows it to see if it is carrying his master, as it did many months ago.

Negao-dog

Posted: 09 Aug 2016 07:09 AM PDT

Entering North Korea is not the easiest or safest thing to do for foreigners, but curious tourists can now experience a small piece of North Korean culture in the Mediterranean city of Tarragona, where a small bar founded to promote Kim Jong-Un’s totalitarian regime recently opened.

Alejandro Cao de Benos, the founder of Pyongyang Cafe, is the only Westerner to occupy a post in the North Korean regime, even if it is only honorary. A firm believer in communism, he became interested in North Korea after the fall of the Soviet Union, which coincided with meeting some North Korean families in Madrid. He started traveling to the isolated Asian country, managed to meet with the late Kim Jong-Il, and in 2002 he was appointed special delegate for international cultural relations by Pyongyang. The title is not official, but he has taken his mission very seriously. Cao de Benos, a.k.a. “Cho Sun-il” (which translates as “Korea is one”) went on to found the Korean Friendship Association which currently has delegates in 30 countries around the world.

As someone who regularly appears in the Spanish media to defend North Korea against what he calls Western propaganda and manipulation, Cho Sun-il decided to open Pyongyang Cafe as a way to offer people an authentic North Korean experience. “We want to break with all the myths, manipulation,” he says. “And as not many people can go to Korea, because it’s complicated and far, they can come to our cafe.”

Pyongyang-cafe

Posted: 09 Aug 2016 06:07 AM PDT

Shoyna, a small Russian village located on the edge of the arctic circle is often referred to as the world’s northernmost desert. The sand covers everything as far as the eye can see and the few people living here never dare shut their front doors at night, for fear of being buried alive by the ever-shifting dunes. But it wasn’t always like this…

Shoyna was settled in the 1930’s by fishermen drawn to the coast of the White Sea by the abundance of fish in the area. In just two decades, it had grown into a bustling fishing port with a population of around 1,500 people and a fleet of roughly seventy fishing boats. However, it wasn’t long before excessive trawling decimated the fish colonies and the fishery collapsed. The dozens of vessels lining the shore stopped coming and many of the families that had thrived in Shoyna slowly moved away. Today, the official number of inhabitants is 375, most of whom survive on unemployment benefits and pensions. Hunting is also a way to make ends meet, thanks to the large number of barnacle and Brent geese that use Shoyna as a stopover on their migration course, but the most lucrative job in the village is definitely that of bulldozer driver, as everyone needs their house dug up from the sand at one point.

Shoyna-sand-village