Day of the Shining Star
Kim Jong-il was born in February 1941 to Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-suk in Siberia in the Russian Federal Republic, Soviet Union where his father had been in exile because of his guerilla activities. North Korean propaganda, however, dates Kim Jong-il's birth to 16 February 1942 and locates it at the Mount Paektu area in Korea, the mythical place of origin of the Korean people, where Kim Il-sung supposedly ran a guerilla camp. In reality, the guerillas were based in Manchuria at the time and Kim himself had been to the Soviet Far East before and after Kim Jong-il's birth.
Vyatskoye, Khabarovsk Krai
During World War II near Vyatskoye was a camp for the Soviet 88th Brigade, which was made up of Korean and Chinese guerrillas. Kim Il-sung, future leader of North Korea, was stationed there as a Captain in the Soviet Red Army commanding a battalion, and according to some sources his family was there as well. According to those same sources his son Kim Jong-il was born there on February 16, 1941 (although the North Korean government claims Kim Jong-il was born on Paektu Mountain in Japanese Korea a year later, on February 16, 1942). Residents of the town claim that his brother Shura Kim (sometimes known as the first Kim Pyong-il) fell into a well and died, and was buried there; however other sources claim that Kim Jong-il's sibling drowned in a pool in Pyongyang in 1947.