Two North Korean soldiers walk along a road and past a small village near the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas outside Kaesong, North Korea.
David Guttenfelder / AP
People pay their respects at a monument to Kim Il Sung at Mansu Hill in Pyongyang as residents began to celebrate on the eve of the late President Kim Il Sung's birthday.
David Guttenfelder / AP
North Korean soldiers, foreground, and North Korean traffic police, background, tour the birthplace of Kim Il Sung to pay their respects at Mangyongdae.
David Guttenfelder / AP
Re: Kim Jong-il: the life and times of the leader of North Korea
In an April 15, 2012 photo, North Korean soldiers attend a mass military parade in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square to celebrate 100 years since the birth of the North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. Spectacles in North Korea exist at the intersection of dogma, tedium and entertainment. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu)