Sunday 23 June 2013

Borderlands II - Kirkenes


Kirkenes as a town doesn't have all that much to recommend it. In many ways it's a simple industrial town in the far North. But because it is placed at the point where Northern Norway touches Russia, it has an interesting history. Up on the hill nearby you can find the Borderland Museum, which deals mostly with the situation of Kirkenes during the Second World War and the Cold War. The museum building was constructed around a WWII aircraft, which sits in the centre of an impressionistic exhibition on the ground floor. The writing for the exhibition has been done in verse and includes the texts of poems and hymns. On one wall there is a swastika made from Nazi propaganda posters, selling the Reich to the Norwegian people and denigrating the USSR and the allies. Many are still quite effective today, especially one showing a monstrous figure representing US cultural imperialism; its head is a Klu Klux Klan hood, its Kali-like arms carry vinyl records, a monkey in a cage and a Miss America contest winner. One of the monster's legs is made of bolted metal and has a ribbon wrapped around it which reads, "World's Greatest Leg." At the bottom of the frame is a small sign with the message, "The USA wants to rescue Europe from cultural apocalypse." Of course, if the Nazis hadn't been racial supremacists who destroyed literature they disapproved of it would have strengthened their case somewhat.

It must have been weird for the people of Kirkenes and the surrounding area. The Nazis left, but the Soviet Union remained on their doorstep. There was a short-term agreement for a time that locals could travel across the border to the nearest Russian town for trade and a party once a month, but when the Russians offered to extend the agreement, the Norwegian government declined, concerned about the fostering of Soviet sympathies and the opportunities for spying and recruitment. Today the people of Kirkenes have a special visa agreement with Russia and you hear a lot of Russian being spoken in the town centre.

We stayed a little out of town in a cabin on a husky farm right by the border. The hotel is called Sollia Gjestegård, and I can recommend it to any visitors. From there we walked up into the hills to the place where the border between Russia and Norway is marked. We followed little white wooden markers through the undergrowth and up the mountainside. There was still some snow lying on the ground, but it was spring, and though it was almost midnight the sun was in the sky, reflecting in the small bodies of water on the hilltops. First we saw the horizontally striped sticks which mark the border between countries. Then we climbed higher up and came to one of the border-stones. 

 

"You can go right up to the border-stone, but you can't go past it or you'll get arrested," the manager of our hotel had told us. "You don't need to wonder whether you'll get arrested, because you will." So we stood on the top of the hill and looked over into Russia, and back into Norway, and down at the place where the river turns Russian. There didn't seem to be anyone around to arrest us, but we didn't risk it. Marthe was convinced that there was a Russian border officer crouching behind the stone, just waiting for us to take one step too many towards his homeland.





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