Other years, our city in Norway on the Russian border was filled with Russian visitors. Hundreds of them came here to celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas on January 7 and 8. The war in Ukraine has changed a lot, including in Kirkenes.
Kirkenes is located 250 kilometers above the Arctic Circle, 13 kilometers from the Borisoglebsk border post. A year after the fall of the Soviet Union, it was in our city that Russian Foreign Minister Andrey Kosyrev met his Nordic interlocutors on January 11, 1993. The Barents Sea Euro-Arctic Council was initiated by Norwegian minister Thorvald Stoltenberg, father of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. This partnership created optimism about Russia’s integration into a “Western” conception of democracy and equal cooperation. For the people of Kirkenes in particular, but also in the High North, it created a lot of activity for cross-border and interpersonal cooperation. Kirkenes became a “Russian town” in Norway. Everyone got Russian friends, Russian was spoken everywhere and Russia became an important economic partner.
With the brutal attack and war against Ukraine, the situation has completely changed. All official cooperation with Russia has stopped. Kirkenes is one of three ports still open to Russian fishing boats, and Russian fishermen are present in Kirkenes. Our shipyard also repairs Russian ships. LNG ships transport Russian gas to European ports along the Norwegian coast
But the mood has turned. Anti-Russian demonstrations take place outside the Russian consulate. In the center is our most famous statue related to our relationship with the Soviet Union and Russia, but no Norwegian official participates here in the commemoration of the liberation by the Red Army. (There are several monuments in our town related to the liberation of Kirkenes in October 1944. There are also memorials to the many Russian prisoners of war.)
New frontier
So here in the north, 250 kilometers above the Arctic Circle, Norway shares a border with Russia. The 197-kilometer-long border was a result of European geopolitics after the Napoleonic Wars. The border treaty was signed in French in Saint Petersburg in June 1826. It is the oldest border in Russia and the youngest in Norway.
The people who lived here in the border area consisted of two Sami groups, Finns and Norwegians. New frontier or not: for most nineteenth-century people life went on as usual. But for the Russian Orthodox Skolt Sami, who roamed both sides of the border, this marked the beginning of the end of their nomadic culture. At the same time, the so-called Pomor trade flourished along the coast in northern Norway and northwestern Russia. By 1910, Russia had thus become Norway’s fourth trading partner. At the beginning of the twentieth century, contacts across borders were part of everyday life. Civilians were allowed to hunt and fish across the border.
That lasted until the October Revolution in 1917. When the Soviet Union became an independent state, the Russians had to cede land all over Europe. One of the areas ceded to Finland was Pechenga, Petsamo in Finnish, a region bordering Norway to the west and a fjord of the Barents Sea to the north. The latter is not without significance: Finland’s dream was access to the Arctic Ocean, and thanks to the new piece of land, major activities could suddenly be developed in the former Russian area.
Finland became an important partner in this historic multi-ethnic area. But Norway, which had gained independence from Sweden in 1905, was also concerned about the ‘Finnish danger’ and the influence it had in the border areas. The population on the Norwegian side consisted of 60 percent Finnish refugees, who had fled the famine in Finland. A Norwegian program was started to settle real ‘Norwegians’ from the south of Norway in our border area. People got work, the Pasvik River was used for Finnish timber transport and one of the largest sawmills in Europe was established outside Kirkenes. An open pit for iron ore was opened as early as 1906, and the working class radicalized strongly. The area was also used for smuggling communist literature to Russia. Even Lenin who was in Zurich knew about Kirkenes.
In November 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland, and Finland later became an ally of Nazi Germany. Nearly 900 refugees from Finland came across the border to Norway. Norway was occupied by the Germans, but there was war in Kirkenes. Between Murmansk and Kirkenes, more than 60,000 soldiers died between 1940 and 1944.
When the Red Army came to Kirkenes in October 1944, including soldiers and officers from Ukraine, the 1826 border was restored. The Red Army left Kirkenes in September 1945. Three years later, NATO and the Warsaw Pact were established and the Cold War began. This created political tension among the people in the border areas. It is true that people here had a positive attitude towards the Soviet Union, because they were seen as liberators from the Nazis. But from Oslo, that attitude was suspicious, and many people were checked legally and illegally. These wounds were fading, but since the Russian invasion early last year we see traces of them again. How we condemn the Russian attack and war against Ukraine is now again creating mistrust among the people.
‘Contest’
Some Russians in Kirkenes today support Putin’s terror against the people of Ukraine. At the same time, there is a ‘competition’ going on to be the most against Russia. This in turn creates contradictions between people. Some get scared. The tourism industry is concerned. There is, of course, a general negative attitude towards Putin’s Russia, but some organizations can still work with artists, journalists and people who oppose the Russian regime. Within Russia there are small groups that need our support in their fight against the dictator in the Kremlin. After the war there will be new opportunities for cooperation, and it is important that we have democratic contact across the border.
Putin’s war against Ukraine, on the other hand, has led to increased cooperation with Finland and Sweden, which will join NATO. This creates new opportunities for diversified cooperation, not only in the military field, but also in the fields of infrastructure, trade and culture. Russia will sadly be isolated and driven into the belly of the Chinese dragon.
We may be naive and too optimistic about democratic development in Russia. The idea of the Euro-Arctic Council for the Barents Sea was in fact a normalization of a political situation in the High North. But as a country with an asymmetrical relationship to a large and aggressive neighbor, Norway cannot let Putin win the war. We must support Ukraine by all means. Norway has only one real challenge regarding our foreign policy: we have a complex and unpredictable neighbour.
A neighbor attacking and terrorizing Ukraine also affects human relations. When the war is over, Russia will still be our neighbour. We do not know what kind of Russia we will meet then. Let us hope that the Russian people are able to remove a despot and war criminal as president. We must believe that we can resume civilized cooperation with a Russia that respects human rights and European borders.