The Kremlin's state-run news agency TASS reported that a passenger train that departed the North Korean capital last week arrived at Moscow's Yaroslavsky railway station on Wednesday after a journey of about eight days.
But the first train that departed from Pyongyang on June 17 had "no passengers" with only the conductors on board, TASS reported, quoting a North Korean railway official as saying.
Expressing his "thrill" at this sign of "friendly relations" between the two countries, the official further explained, "The new carriages soon to operate between the capitals are more advanced than previous models, featuring modern facilities" including "eco-friendly toilet systems."
The resumption of the services, suspended in February 2020 due to the pandemic, came about a year after the two countries signed a military pact during President Vladimir Putin's visit to Pyongyang for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June last year.
The railway route spans more than 10,000 kilometers, making it one of the longest in the world and the only way to directly travel between the two key cities without transfers.
Several months earlier, another railway route connecting North Korea's Tumen River to Khasan in Russia resumed operations amid ever-growing ties between the two countries.
With these resumptions of railway services, speculation has been growing that Kim could visit Russia sometime later this year, as he traveled by train on his two previous visits, although he does not appear to have inherited his father's morbid fear of flying.
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