calendar>>February 21. 2009 Juche 98

Flower Festival Reflecting Best Wishes of Mankind

Pyongyang, February 21 (KCNA) -- The 13th Kimjongilia Festival had been held with splendor at the Kimilsungia-Kimjongilia Exhibition in Pyongyang from February 14 to 20 on the occasion of the February 16, the birthday of General Secretary Kim Jong Il, which is an auspicious holiday common to the humankind.

Ri Yong Je, a department director of the Korean Kimilsungia-Kimjongilia Committee, said in an interview with KCNA:

The flower festival is an annual event. But this year's festival was a grand one of the Sun's flower and of praise for the great man, which reflected the boundless respect and best wishes of the Korean people for Kim Jong Il who kindled the torch of a new great revolutionary upsurge in the country and is covering constantly the road of on-the-spot guidance day and night from the outset of the year.

Tens of thousands of potted Kimjongilias cultivated with care by more than 90 units including the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly, organs of the People's Armed Forces, the State Academy of Sciences, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, the Mansudae Art Studio and officers and men of the Korean People's Army, working people from all strata and school youth and children had been displayed at the festival. It glaringly showed the firm resolution of all the servicepersons and the entire people of Korea to follow their leader to the last.

Hundreds of potted Kimjongilias exhibited by the Central Standing Committee of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, Ri Hwa Son, the manager of the Jian city branch office of the General Association of Korean Residents in China and her son Han Chol Ho and other overseas Koreans made the festival more beautiful.

Lots of immortal flowers carrying the infinite reverence of the world progressive humankind for the peerlessly great man were also displayed there in the name of diplomatic missions and international organizations here, friendship and solidarity organizations, tourist companies of various countries and individual figures.

During the festival the number of visitors from Korea and abroad amounted to over 250,000.

Visitors said that Kimjongilia is unique, incomparably beautiful and famous flower and is the king of flowers in the world, adding that the immortal flower named after the great man rare to be seen will come into fuller bloom all over the world.