Pyongyang · KP

USS Pueblo

The USS Pueblo is a strange and arresting sight in the heart of Pyongyang: a weathered, lightly built US Navy intelligence ship moored on a calm urban canal, kept for decades as the prize of the Cold War. Seized by North Korea in January 1968, she remains the only US Navy vessel still held captive by a foreign government—and the only one still, officially, on the US Navy's commissioned roster. For a visitor, boarding her is a rare chance to walk inside a real episode of 20th-century history. Today the Pueblo forms part of the sprawling Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum complex in central Pyongyang, presented through the lens of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a symbol of victory over the United States. The compact ship is open to organized tours, where guides lead visitors through the cramped decks, mess hall and bridge. It is less a neutral museum than a living piece of propaganda—but an unusually tangible one, and a memorable stop on any visit to the capital.