Posted on 07/05/2004 9:19:56 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
Barentsburg, Norway - Hammer and sickle banners hang from the wall of a rundown hangar and a statue of Lenin stands proud: the USSR no longer exists but you would not know it from visiting the small Russian mining town of Barentsburg in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic.
Cut off from the rest of the world on the island of Spitsbergen, Barentsburg is surrounded by water in summer and ice in winter, accessible only by helicopter, snowmobile or boat depending on the weather.
The thousand or so hardened residents here have learned to be self-sufficient, but they live in a bygone era.
"We still live Soviet-style here. It's an historic site. Look at the architecture and the monuments," says Katarina Stetsuk, a Ukrainian who works as a guide and translator and is one of only a few people here who speak English.
The scene would not be so bizarre were Barentsburg not located on Norwegian soil, where free-market capitalism is alive and well.
An international treaty from 1920 put Svalbard under Norwegian control but all signatory nations are granted equal access to its natural resources. As a result, Russians came to Barentsburg in 1932 to mine coal.
A glacial, coal-specked wind whips across this desolate Arctic setting. Large brick or wooden buildings, some with broken windows, feature communist era frescoes: the faces of young, smiling labourers adorn the facade of the cultural centre, a babushka looks out across the football pitch blackened by soot from the coal.
A Stakhonovite billboard featuring the best worker of the month and a poster proclaiming "Our goal: communism" have only recently been taken down.
But on one empty square, a statue of Lenin still towers over the silhouettes of workers returning home to their apartments paid for by the Russian mining company Arktikugol.
"A lot of things are free: the sports centre, the cultural centre, housing and food," explains Katarina Stetsuk.
The community functions without money, as most services are offered for free but also because commodities are rare.
Cigarettes or vodka can be bought from sparsely-stocked shelves in the local shop, where the cost of purchases is deducted from workers' salaries -- which they only receive at the end of their two-year stints.
In theory, the small colony of Russians here are subject to the same Norwegian laws as the rest of the archipelago, even if no Norwegians live here and no one speaks Norwegian.
In reality, only discreet clues bear witness to Norway's rule: a sign for Norway's postal service outside the hotel; meetings between the Norwegian governor of Svalbard, the Russian consul and Arktikugol officials; and weekly patrols by uniformed police.
Police interference is however limited. Cops recently had to release a Russian miner who had stabbed a Ukrainian colleague to death because they were unable to prove that he wasn't acting in self-defense.
While Norway is one of the richest countries in the world, prosperity remains a foreign concept for the Barentsburg miners, who earn about €350 a month, or 15 times less than their Norwegian counterparts who work just a few kilometers away.
"Contrary to previously, fewer and fewer of them are renewing their contracts," says Hilde Henningsen, a Norwegian schoolteacher who occasionally visits from nearby Longyearbyen to volunteer her help to the Russian community.
"Some even quit before the end of their contracts," she adds, noting that those who do so have to pay out of their own pocket for a pricey ticket to their motherland.
Hell, have you been to Massachusetts or California lately?
Hey, we have a statue of Lenin right here in Dallas, in front of Goff's Hamburgers, but I wouldn't advise anyone to call Harvey Gough a Communist!
Interesting. Go that far north & I don't think anyone speaks Norwegian, including the Sami.
http://www.itv.se/boreale/samieng.htm
Outstanding burgers. Half the fun though is watching him dog out customers.
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