In southern Primorsky Krai, near the town of Khasan and the lake of the same name—famous for the battles between Soviet and Japanese troops in 1938— a bridge over the Tumen River, which marks the border between Russia and North Korea, was inaugurated this September . The first vehicle to cross the new bridge was a red 1980 Zaporozhets car. Why that car in particular?
Background
To answer that question, we must go back in history. Starting in 1931, the young Kim Il-sung, the future first leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, fought as a guerrilla in northeastern China, in Manchuria , which, like his native Korea, was occupied by the Japanese. It was then that he adopted the name Il-sung, or ‘Rising Sun’ (his birth name was Kim Song-ju).
In 1939, when the resistance was on the verge of collapse, the Chinese and Korean guerrilla detachments had to retreat into Soviet territory . The Soviet command decided to provide assistance to the partisan movement in Manchuria: the partisans rested and recovered in Soviet territory and then returned to Manchuria with renewed strength and ammunition to continue the fight. One of the leaders of this movement was Kim Il-sung, who later became part of the 88th International Rifle Brigade, composed mainly of Chinese and Koreans and attached to the Red Army.
Following Japan’s defeat in August and September 1945, Kim Il-sung was delivering a speech in Pyongyang on March 1, 1946. Local communists and high-ranking Red Army officers were seated with him on the platform. Soldiers from Second Lieutenant Yakov Novichenko’s section were guarding the entrances, while the officer stood near the platform, when someone threw a grenade at the North Korean leader. Novichenko reacted instantly and caught it with his hand . Looking around, he realized he had nowhere to throw it: the crowd surrounded him. The Soviet officer then made what he believed to be the only correct decision: he shielded the grenade with his body.
The explosion occurred. Novichenko was seriously injured, but survived, although he lost an arm and suffered damage to an eye . His life was saved by the book ‘Brusilov’s Offensive’, some 600 pages long , which he carried with him: he read it in his free time and hid it under his coat the rest of the time.
This could be said to be the first heroic act of a Soviet Army officer: the Red Army had been renamed just four days earlier.
The second lieutenant spent several months in the hospital. During that time, he received fruit and flowers daily from the North Korean leader. One day, Kim Il-sung, through his aide, presented him with a silver cigarette case inscribed: “To the hero of March 1, Novichenko. From the Chairman of the Provisional People’s Committee of North Korea, Kim Il-sung.”
In 1948, Kim Il-sung officially assumed leadership of the newly formed DPRK . While the north of the Korean peninsula fell within the Soviet sphere of influence, the south fell under the American sphere, where similar processes were unfolding under Washington’s auspices. That same year, the Republic of Korea emerged, led by Syngman Rhee, who had spent the previous 40 years in the United States.
Between 1950 and 1953, a civil war erupted between the two Koreas, nearly escalating into a third nuclear world war. A UN contingent, comprised of 15 countries and led by the United States, fought on the side of the South. The North received support from China and, unofficially, from the USSR: a unit of MiG-15 fighter jets defended the DPRK’s skies from American bombs.
Novichenko’s subsequent relationship with Kim Il Sung
Upon retiring from the army, Novichenko returned to his home village, Travnoye (now part of the Novosibirsk province), and was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
True fame came to him much later. In 1984, during a visit to the USSR, Kim Il-sung located Novichenko in Siberia and awarded him the country’s highest honor: Hero of Labor of the DPRK, a title no other Soviet citizen has ever held. Following this gesture from the North Korean leader, local authorities granted him an apartment in the center of Novosibirsk. Subsequently, he and his family vacationed in the DPRK several times at the leader’s personal invitation. Some North Koreans even named their children ‘Novichenko’.
In 1985 the Soviet-Korean film ‘One Second for a Feat’ premiered , starring the well-known Soviet actor Andrei Martynov.
Kim Il-sung and Novichenko died in 1994. Novichenko outlived his “older brother,” as he called the North Korean leader, by five months.
Until now, Russia and North Korea were only connected by air and the so-called ‘Friendship Bridge’ (the Khasan-Tumangang border crossing). The new crossing, opened in September, is a two-lane road bridge, one kilometer long (4.7 km including access roads), near the point where Russia, North Korea, and China meet. It is officially named the ‘Yakov Vovichenko Bridge’ .
Yakov Novichenko’s daughter and grandson, Tatyana and Nikolai Shcherbitski, attended the inauguration. The Zaporozhets ZAZ-968M mentioned earlier belonged to Yakov Tikhonovich , and it was his grandson who drove it during the event.
Between 2024 and 2025, a unit of about 10,000 North Korean fighters participated in the liberation of the Russian province of Kursk from Ukrainian troops, on the orders of the current North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
Source -> https://actualidad.rt.com/a-fondo/628876-corea-kim-il-sung-novichenko-sovietico