One day in early May in 1998 Chairman Kim Jong Il visited the Sogwang Temple at the foot of Mt Solbong in Kangwon Province’s Kosan County.
The area around the temple has long been widely known as a scenic spot for its beautiful landscape and mineral water.
After looking round the area, the Chairman advanced detailed tasks to turn it into a public cultural resort in a more splendid way. Then he feasted his eyes on the surrounding area with the Sagi Stream flowing along the valley, a dense forest of pine, pine-nut and oak trees and chirping birds.
After a while, he appreciated that the water and air around the temple are clean and good, saying: The zelkova tree in the compound of the temple is quite impressive. Zelkova trees form a grove along the valley, so the valley the Sogwang Temple sits in could be called the zelkova valley.
At that time a caretaker of the temple explained that the zelkova tree in the compound is over 600 years old and 6.8 metres round at the bottom and that it was registered as a national living monument. Then the Chairman said that such a big tree would be rare enough to be a living monument.
While walking through the dense forest, he said to the accompanying officials: Zelkova trees should be widely planted. Our country has been called a land of golden tapestry since olden times. Accordingly we should transform it into a beautiful land in the era of the Workers’ Party by planting trees a lot.
He went on to say that good species of trees should be widely planted through a brisk tree-planting campaign involving all people across the country for the nation’s prosperity and the rising generations.
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