Lmao, I thought this was by some channel with like 200k subs or whatever, but nah bro's like "my first video"💀. Very well done!

My family’s friend who emigrated from Turkmenistan used to tell that the agents who eavesdrop on phone conversations would openly laugh if they hear a joke. Her colleague was fired from job because she didn’t enunciate the words of the anthem while singing - something you are required to do at the start of the working day. Also, when president Niyazov decided to promote healthy lifestyle by opening a running track around the capital, the populace was forced to walk on it, and police would not let people leave it unless bribed. Several elderly people died of heart attacks, dehydration and exhaustion at that opening.

At a birthday party for an engineer from Turkmenistan (in the UK for a training course). His UK boss asked him how the leader of his country (Turkmenbashi?) is getting younger. Every business there must have the official photo of the leader of Turkmenistan displayed in the office and they’d just had the latest one delivered. The engineer was visibly shaken by such a critical comment about his country, despite being in a small provincial town in the UK he looked around him as if he was looking for spies who may report him before answering that he’d not noticed that about his leader. Thousands of miles away from his home country, yet he was terrified to even witness a criticism of his country’s leader.

Disappointing that Turkmenistan's "Walk of Health" wasn't mentioned when going over the bizarre things the country does. The president built a 22 mile long walkway that goes into the mountains and every year forces his ministers and other government officials to walk it start to finish while he rides in a helicopter observing them, and berates them for their slow pace at the finish. Easily my favorite part of that country.

Fun fact, Eritrea withdrew from World Cup 2026 qualifications because they legit afraid when the team will defect to other countries.

Hmmmm... Maybe I will leave a like. Let's wait 3 or 4 decades.

I would argue that Cuba really shouldn't be on this list. It's very isolated from the rest of the world, but that's almost entirely because of the US embargo. And Cuba does have actual elections, different people can come into power, and party membership is not a requirement

The reason the other countries are largely unknown is that they don't have nuclear weapons.

China not becoming like North Korea is entirely due to luck. Mao's third son died very young, and his second son was mentally ill and widely considered unfit to rule. That left his eldest son, who died in the Korean War. Legends has it that he died because he was hungry one night and went out to make egg fried rice, only the fire/light alerted the UN forces to his presence, and he got bombed. This is widely circulated along the older generations of Chinese people who still remember Mao's rule, and occasionally joke about how "grateful they are to egg fried rice". As such, the phrase "egg fried rice" is banned on Chinese social media like WeChat. (Funnily enough, most of the younger people who accidentally talk about egg fried rice don't actually know about the incident due to heavy government censorship, but seeing their messages censored makes them curious, which is how they find out about the exact thing the government tries to cover up.)

My friend in high school was from Eritrea, his dad worked in the government and one night they fled and made there way to India, lived there for awhile and then moved to America. He would typically just tell people he’s Indian since he had an Indian accent, he was Christian though and it was always funny to ask him what he though about Indian religious traditions, he would rant about the Ganges River and how he never understood how anyone could go in it

Cuba doesn't really have much in common with NK, functionally or in outcomes.

Albania is apparently called: the North Korea of Europe. It 100% has a lot less North Korea factors but it is for some reason

Calling cuba similar to north korea is an absolutely ridiculous comparison.

Early in highschool, I somehow stumbled upon an article about Saparmyrat Nyýazow and his the fairly new 12 million dollar gold covered statue of himself that rotates to face the sun. Everything about this man and his country left be bewildered, and astounded, and at the time I ended up going down a rabbit hole just learning about this crazy place. Thanks for mentioning Turkmenistan.

You can apply this to almost every dictatorship in the 20th century. North Korea is unique because it turned its cult of personality into a religion - codified into the constitution and laws, as opposed it being just a dictatorial status quo until the leader is dead - while also remaining absolutely isolated, unlike Cuba, Eritrea and Turkmenistan, each of whom is member of at least one international organisation. Further, North Korea has managed to remain such under extreme pressure AND developed a nuclear arsenal, while having the 4th largest army in the world - from a population of merely 26 million

no way did u just compare cuba to north korea. literally wdym now tourists are allowed to interact with cuba when were they not allowed ever? and we're not fucking isolated it's usa with the goddamn embargo + my mom was trying to travel to another country and had to get this visa thing and everything was fine from cuba but the country she was trying to go to denied her the thing and she can't go. i used to think it was cuba not letting us leave but it's other countries Edit cuz I wanted to add more stuff: I have a teacher who is a computer scientist like my dad and computer scientists here travel a lot for work. My dad traveled to a bunch of countries he's lost count at this point and in one of those travels he could bring his family so I went and lived in Canada for 3 years which is how I know English. Anyways my teacher went to North Korea and told us of all the crazy shit they do there and the laws and bro did not compare that to Cuba that's crazy...

I don't think it's fair to put Cuba on the list with these other nations. They don't have the harsh political repression they do, they allow for religious toleration and freedom, and they also have higher standards of living

Genuinely surprised to not see Belarus present

I was in Cuba in 1996. It seemed to me that every other country in the world besides the USA were involved in Cuba. A Canadian informed me that Canada was desperately trying to establish a trade toehold in Cuba before the Americans came back and steamrolled over everybody with their investment wealth. The Cubans were still poorly paid but were starting to rebuild their country after subsidies dried up due to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

I dont think Cuba would qualify as a "North Korea". It is open to tourism, it sends doctors to other countries, it sells cigars instead of buying them, and (with some difficulty) they can communicate with the outside world and have musicians, writers and journalists in other parts of the world, some praising, and some denouncing the regime. That would be unthinkable in NK.

The fact that you describe Turkmenistan like you did, but still call Cuba the country most like North Korea is wild.

I'd just like to note one thing: while Cuba is a repressive one party system it does actually have some democracy. Bills are drafted by the government and are then put to a public vote for the people to decide whether they want it or not. Other than that great video.

1:18 as a Turkish person I love how you put the turkey for a single millisecond there

Missed Belarus. Same “President” since fall of USSR. Lukashenko also killed his own people in a subway bombing around 2010. He routinely has political opponents arrested and/of exiled.

Fun fact: Eritrea is one of only two countries in the world that does not let its citizens leave its tax jurisdiction so that any citizens living outside the country are double taxed. Guess the other country.

No way this guy thinks Cuba is like the PRK 💀

Cuba is hardly isolated. Only the US does not trade with Cuba. Canada, Europe, and most of Latin America do. There are regular flights from Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal to Havana. It is a popular Canadian winter vacation spot.

I think one additional key difference between Cuba and North Korea is that North Korea's (relative) self-isolation is self-imposed, while Cuba is isolated largely because of the trade embargo by the USA. EDIT: added (relative) to self-isolation, because they aren't completely isolated from the outside world. North Korea has a bunch of diplomatic missions and embassies abroad and other countries have them in North Korea. Cuba has a ton more though, see below.

I would like to point out that part of the reason Cuba is so isolated/protectionist is because ever since the Cold War, the US has done huge amounts of sanctioning on it. The US literally set up a navy blockade around Cuba with the explicit purpose of starving them out and destroying the country. Literally every country in the UN, with the exception of the US and Israel, believe the sanctions are pretty horrible and should be lifted. The US also has a history of trying to directly sabotage their government. Cuba isn't great, but given the circumstances, I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Also, technically, Cuba isn't communist. They're led by a communist party, but being called communist isn't the same as actually being communist. They would be much more accurately described as a type of authoritarian socialist state.

Not the algorithm recommending everyone the same video at the same time… 💀💀

I think the big difference between Turkmenistan, Eritrea and Cuba is that you can leave. In Eritrean you have the conscription factor but if most families that can leave while their sons are very young. I think Cuba is unfairly on the list a little bit. It definitely has a dictatorship but it isn’t cut off the the world in terms of information. Also fun fact one of its biggest exports is its doctors.

Cuba! Are you effing joking!

I've been to Cuba 10+ years ago and it was very pleasant. As a tourist, you're probably more protected and happy than any regular citizen will be... If a local would approach tourists (most easily spotted by skin colour, clothing and then language in that order I suppose, and demeanour) then they would be stopped by police if they saw that. A friend on the same trip with Colombian (iirc) heritage was stopped by police (with police dogs and submachine guns, mind you) and asked questions because they (the local police) thought he was Cuban and he was walking with us. There wasn't any aggression but it was very weird. I do not know how things have changed the last 10 years. Cuba, when I was there, was kind of "reverse" bigots and they were bigoted towards their own people, in a way. We were there for a bit over 2 weeks and lived with host families for about a week. Everything was very communist, so being host for tourists provided extra income and made people rich, basically. It was probably not easy to get that permit legally domestically. Breakfasts were 1 egg, good amounts of juice (makes sense) and dry bread with a couple of "cheese" slices that squeaks like plastic when you chew it. No butter iirc, but salt (and I can't remember if there was pepper). At the hotels, it was quite a different world. And the best juice I've ever had in my entire life (still to this date). They didn't have "western" soda (but they had a crap ton of different Pringles for some reason) but they had something called "TropiCola" which was actually very good. All in all it was a very nice experience, though in retrospect I don't know what to think about their people (in regards to how their nation is run). It's an extremely charming nation and sometimes it seemed like paradise (geographically), however it was quite obvious that - although surprisingly clean - people were generally very poor and not having a lot of choices for determining their own path or future (when I say "not having a lot" I mean basically 0)

I definitely don’t think Cuba and the DPRK are on the same level. I really hope the blockade of Cuba ends. All it does is create animosity. These sanctions and blockades don’t work. The people in these counties blame America for their suffering not their government

Please don't assume people don't know geography. Americans are not the only ones who watch YT.

I'm no Cuba simp but rlly?

People defending Cuba are silly. Cuba is a heavily sanctioned communist one party state (that's basically just a dictatorship) which is exactly what North Korea is. Just because Cuba has tourism and its citizens aren't in crippling poverty doesn't make it as different as people are arguing.

Bro casyally dropped the hardest first video on this channel 🗣️🔊🔥

As someone from Turkmenistan, I felt very excited to hear what you had to say, and it just didn't seem like there was much information there. If you're going to do a video on 3 countries, I would like to actually know a little more about them, whether it's historical information, or what really makes them unique. You could mention our "door to hell" landmark, our Oil trade, something about our closed borders, economy, really anything your heart desires but I felt like Turkmenistan just got a shoutout and I was quite disappointed, because rarely do I get to see my country mentioned in a video

I dont know who you are or where you came from, but you are busting onto the scene like the Koolaid man. Your video production quality and narration aptitude are top notch. Keep it up and very soon you wont need to shamelessly shill for likes to keep you from being homeless. Keep it up dude, you are on FIRE.

Venezuela could be an honorable mention, the regime sure tried to make an isolationist cult to personality woek

I know this probably doesnt matter to most people but thank you so much for having captions. Its hard for me to process speech sometimes so its much easier to watch vidoes without botched auto generated captions. appreciate it ❤

I read the title wrong and thought this video was about 3 North Koreans nobody talks about

Cuba is the only country on this list that I've been to, and definitely don't think it belongs. It is a dictatorship, sure. About half the world is. But it's not a particularly repressive one. The government does make real efforts to deliver on their communist ideals (far more than China or North Korea do), on top of being open to private business and trade. One of my big measures of dictatorship-shittiness-level is leader portraits. Visit Syria? Every business has a portrait of Assad. (Egypt, too, when I was there, but they've had a revolution since, so maybe better?) Visit Cuba? There's official propaganda on the streets, but nothing on private property. That means there's no thought police traveling around making sure everyone feigns loyalty to the regime.

this video so terminally american that high-fructose corn syrup now flows from my headphones

this video is missing a lot of nuance. we are talking about vastly different economic systems and standards of living between all of these countries.

Turkmenistan, Eritrea and Cuba Edit: bro how did I get 16 likes for writing country names nah bro

“First video” - is more well-edited and put together than 90% of these kinds of videos

Okay, now tell the people WHY Cuba was so isolated from the rest of the world. *cough*USembargo*cough*cough*

It is understandable to label a country a “North Korea” if that’s your frame of reference, but it’s better to look at a country’s origins and then its current form, instead of the other way around.

The Turkmenistan leader is literally just Aladeen😂

Cuba has no ban in trading others, it's USA restricting others to trade with Cuba. If some ship company deliver something to Cuba - it will be blacklisted by USA to work in the region so nobody does that. Cuba would be in another state if not for US bullying. Turkmenistan is not same as NK, it's rich for natural gas. They have bus stops with air conditioning and overall fine condition of life. The dictator is crazy, much crazier than in NK, but people doesn't live in poverty

I'm from Nepal. We had a constitutional monarchy until the revolution in 2006. A lot of people regret overthrowing the king now because instead of one strong lion ruling the country, there are hundreds of wolves. The situation is messier than ever. Democracy only works for countries with educated citizens who know what they want and can see the strengths and weaknesses of political parties/candidates, not for an underdeveloped, undereducated country where parties win votes through nepotism and monetary compensation.

man really made a video with the quality of a 100k sub channel as his first video. You earned this like, my dude. Keep up the good work

looking forward to what this channel is like in 3 or 4 decades

the way i got an ad in the middle of this video 💀

I wouldn't put cuba on this list. Ive traveled there and people seem genuinely happy. Theres internet there and the governments grip on the people is nowhere near as strong as NK. Granted it's nowhere near a good government, but not close to as repressive as NK

Myanmar, Iran, Venezuela, and Equatorial Guinea all come close to this category, but not as bad. Interestingly, the two remaining one party states, Laos and Vietnam, aren't that repressive, kind of middle of the pack for countries.

Cuba has been repressed by america for many years for being socialist, blaming them for „not being open to trade“ is the most american washed thing ive heard in a long time…

For a first video this was amazing. Very high quality.

I can see this channel being extremely successful over the next 3 or 4 decades

Narration: excellent! Subject matter: intriguing. Pacing and information density: relatable Three out of three would recommend

You can always identify the people who have either never traveled or never traveled outside a first world country... its the ones who reply with "add USA to the list" haha... as many faults as we have, nothing makes you appreciate what we do have in abundance, more than traveling to places in Africa, South America, or Asia

As an uzbek who shares same borders with Turkmanistan, i am sure some people in Turkmanistan does not know that they are independent from USSR

Iran is pretty much a North Korea tbh. Only difference is that our government couldn't figure out a way to hold Iranians captive in the country and that Kim graduated from high school whereas our president didn't.

Cuba's isolation is more to do with the US than anything else.

Fun fact: Eritrea is one of only two countries in the _world_ where the govt applies citizenship based taxation. The other one is a tad bigger and most people can spot it on a map, with a sliver of the world population believing it's even the only country of the world.

I wonder why this guy's three videos are suddenly getting recommended to so many people? Weird. The algorithm works in mysterious ways.

Visited Cuba back in 2017, genuinely enjoyed my time there and with many of the locals I’ve interacted with seemed to enjoy their lives. Everyone has a cell phone, many people there play video games, and own smart phones just like us. The country definitely has a long way to go but I wouldn’t put it in the same tier as Eritrea and North Korea.

bro, the algorithm blessed you by making your first video viral. Dont waste the opportunity and start pumping videos like crazy Other North Koreas: Venezuela Zimbabwe DRC

Great video, I really enjoyed it! So interesting and love your humour

Singapore - a benevolent dictatorship. They have ultra strict laws. Limited freedom of choice, expression, assembly, association and the press.. The elections are structured to favor the ruling party and the country is a police state using the death penalty and canning.

N Korea has one thing going for it that Turkmenistan does not. The leader's name is easier to pronounce.

Something to note about Cuba, like Vietnam, while they are technically still a dictatorship, they have fairly free and open local elections where people have some ability to speak out on issues they care about.. Also the trade issue was caused by the US blockade. To even remotely compare them to N Korea is disingenuous. They are much closer to modern China or Vietnam. The rest of the world finally ignored the blockade against them, the Us just refuses it still.

This was an excellent video! Your visuals and narration were much better than some channels with 10x the subs.

Amazing delivery. Instant follow. Keep up the good work Bofang!

Just to add something about cuba, they hold elections on certain stuff which if you're interested in legalised gay marriage

0:30 - I can't believe countries would rig elections for one party! Any self respecting nation rigs elections for two parties!

I love your first two videos. The music you use is on point too. hope you keep making content!

Congrats on winning the algorithm. Hope your future videos are just an good, if not better!

As an Uzbek, country that is also under dictatorship, we always joke about howbad Turkmenistan is😂

This has to be one of the most well produced first videos on a channel I’ve ever watched

The algorithm has chosen you. Thank you for the content. I wish I had these countries ranked from safest to most dangerous to travel to

I guessed the first two, but I was thinking Belarus might have been the last one. Or Transnistria is we‘re stretching the definition of country.

Bruuuh McCarthy did a bloody good job if you think Cuba is as undemocratic as North Korea

you got my like with that spongebob gif i’m ngl thats one of the funniest clips from spongebob. this was a great video i love learning about different countries

Knowledge of geopolitics: just above average

You realize Cuba is mostly isolated because of the US blockade

casually sliding in the "very first video" at the end 225k in 2 weeks, i think we all agree this is your thing now dude.

This is a amazing video I was expecting bad quality but omg amazing!

Knocked it out the park! Immediately liked and subscribed 👍🏼 Keep it going, I like your style

Bro did not just compare Cuba to North Korea

Based of the thumbnail I thought you were gonna pick Venezuela over Cuba. I'd say Venezuela is far worse the Cuba right now, and if someone pointed a gun to my head and forced me to choose which one to live in I'd pick Cuba.

Loved the video and I am glad my geography made me recognize all of the flags in the vid and where they are on the map 😂

Really interesting. great production values. Thanks for sharing!

This is definitely some big youtuber’s experiment video where they restart from zero and disguise themselves so their fame doesn’t carry their new channel to show people that KZfaq is skill and not luck. Like that one Ludwig video.

Cuba comparison is very dubious, it's still pretty dictatorial but the standard of living is miles higher than any other country on the list. Otherwise, good video.

30k subs in a month. Well done! In fairness, I don’t think Cuba deserves to be on this list. Burma might.

Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but there was a time during the Cold War where Albania, under the communist regime of Enver Hoxha, was isolated from the rest of the world similar to the other countries mentioned. It’s kind of a long story, but communist Albania left the Warsaw Pact and sided with Maoist China after falling out with the Soviet Union before later falling out with China after Nixon and Mao revitalized diplomatic relations. After which, Albania entered a period of international isolation until Hoxha’s death in 1985. During this period, Hoxha also developed quite an obsession with building bunkers.

Bruh Cube is NOT the same level as the North Korea in the slightest