A bust of Lenin glowers over the square in Barentsburg. Public signs are in Cyrillic script; murals and banners celebrate Russian scientists and artists. Russia’s tricolour flaps from buildings beside ones for Arktikugol, a Russian mining company. A Russian outfit provides the phone service, and shops sell Russian gherkins, tinned fish and fizzy drinks. Russian scientific institutes dot the town. Outside one, bathed in midnight sunshine, two geologists explain they are on their annual research visit from St Petersburg.
You might think this settlement is part of Russia. It’s not. Barentsburg is a geopolitical quirk: a Russian company town squatting on Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago that belongs to Norway. The NATO country has undisputed control, thanks to a treaty that came into force on August 14th 1925. As The Economist went to press, Jonas Store, Norway’s prime minister, was set to preside over a 100th anniversary ceremony in Longyearbyen, Svalbard’s capital. But the treaty also grants nationals and companies from other countries broad rights to exploit resources there, notably by mining coal. Russians have done so since the 1930s.
The Arctic climate has battered many buildings in Barentsburg, a Russian-run mining town in Svalbard, Norway.
Some western intelligence officials fear the arrangement gives Russia an opening to cause trouble. Norway’s intelligence chief, Admiral Nils Andreas Stensonses, warned in June that lately the Arctic “gets more attention” from Russia, in part because the Baltic Sea has become unfriendly waters since it invaded Ukraine. Three years ago Russian trawlers sabotaged a communications cable that runs hundreds of kilometres to the Norwegian mainland. The next year Vladimir Putin’s administration designated Norway as unfriendly. In March Russia accused Norway of breaching the treaty with its military activity in Svalbard.
For the people in Barentsburg, and the handful in the even smaller coal-mining town of Pyramiden nearby, that means growing isolation. One woman who says she arrived from Moscow a month ago to work with tourists confides that she is desperate to leave. The town’s population had already slumped from a peak of almost 2,000 last century to an estimated 340. Its uneconomic mine produces poor-quality sulphurous coal that is burnt locally: the power station’s two chimneys spew sooty clouds over nearby glaciers.
Rave about the polar routes. Murals and posters on several buildings in Barentsburg, Svalbard, celebrate Russia's presence in the Arctic.
Ukrainians, who used to do the mining, have mostly gone. Liberal Russians also fled. Some decamped to prosperous Longyearbyen, 40km away by boat, snowmobile or helicopter. One Russian there explains it grew too “complicated” to stay in Barentsburg after she spoke out against the Ukraine war. Another says he is trapped on the island without a passport, as he vows never to return to Russia. Even popping back to Barentsburg carries risks. Russians who travelled from Longyearbyen to vote in last year’s presidential elections say they were searched on arrival and had to cast ballots under the eye of local officials.
Svalbard’s Norwegian governor, Lars Fause, supervises the Russian-run towns. He reports no tensions, but officials now discourage Norwegians and foreign tourists from visiting them. Some still do, to hike, ski and spot wildlife including polar bears, walruses, and whales. Ageing Soviet architecture is another draw. A garish orange-and-white block from 1974, the Stele, is promoted as “the world’s northernmost skyscraper”. It is four storeys tall.
A Russian flag flies on a building belonging to the Russian state-owned company that runs Barentsburg, a coal-mining town.
Relations between the towns were better in the cold war. The mayor of Longyearbyen, Terje Aunevik, notes that the residents have stopped exchanging visits on national days. The Russian parades are more militaristic nowadays, he says, and involve symbols of cultural difference such as a wooden Orthodox cross. A few Soviet flags have been painted on structures in Barentsburg. Russians can enter Svalbard, visa free, if they travel by boat from Murmansk. One pro-Putin bishop has paid repeated visits to be filmed beside Orthodox religious items.
One of the geologists from St Petersburg says he surveyed territory in Svalbard for decades, looking for rare-earth and other minerals alongside Polish, German and Norwegian scientists. Today he works only with fellow Russians. A Norwegian marine biologist in Longyearbyen says her previous research with Russian colleagues in monitoring the sea and ice in the nearby fjord has ended.
In an effort to develop industry beyond mining, the town of Barentsburg encourages tourists to visit.
Russia won’t close its crumbling settlement. It has proposed a research centre on the island for scientists from the Global South, though the Norwegians are unlikely to allow that. The town still has propaganda and, perhaps, intelligence value for Mr Putin. The coal in Barentsburg may not be worth digging out, but it gives Russians an excuse to remain dug in. ■
