January 12 – Bomb Shelter and the Russian Border

Today we arrived at the end of the northern route of our trip…Kirkenes. This town is only about 10 miles from the Russian border.  

For our excursion today we opted for the Kirkenes tour and a trip out to the Russian border. 

There is a long history of cooperation between the Norwegians and the Russians in this area of the far north.  Both areas are isolated from their respective national capitals and so they early on established trade between the isolated communities in the two countries.  The Russians supplied grain and timber and the Norwegians supplied fish.  The trading was fully open until the Russian Revolution in 1917.  However, there still a lot of movement between the two borders and anyone living with 30 miles of the border does not need a visa to cross into the other country.

Our first stop was the Andersgrotta Bomb Shelter.  During World War II the Germans captured this area as it was a very near the only Russian port (Murmansk) with an open sea port year round.  Plus, Kirkenes had a major iron mine here that the Germans needed to supply their war industry. 

The community underwent massive bombardment by the allies to try to drive out the Germans.  The local mining company decided to tunnel out a massive bomb shelter, the Andersgrotta, in which up to 2500 of the local towns people could take shelter from the hundreds of bombing raids. 

Our guide was a child in the area at the time and had many stories about the deprivation and conditions under the Germans.  It was a pretty sobering story that is seldom told in the tales about World War II. 

When the German's finally retreated near the end of WWII they practiced a scorched policy and the entire area was leveled by the Germans, leaving the locals in dire straits.  

The townspeople were terrified of the oncoming Russians based on horror stories they had been told.  Turns out the Russians helped the townspeople immensely with food and clothing and medical supplies.  Perhaps this was in part a result of a centuries old tradition of mutual trade between the two countries in this area.

From there we had a drive about 10 miles through the countryside.  We saw a lovely white bridge over the Paatsjoki River that flows through Finland, Norway and Russian.  It marks part of the Russia/Norway border. 

We stopped at an overlook where we could see up the river. 

The border between Russian and Norway runs down the middle of the river.  Except that there is a 3.8 square kilometer section on the Norway side that belongs to Russia.  That is because it is the home of an old Russian Church and when the border was finalized it was agreed to give that 3.8 square kilometers to Russia in exchange for other land elsewhere. 

We stopped for a while on the Norwegian side of the border crossing for photos.

You could just see the buildings at the Russian border through the trees.

There was a “mall” (as called by the guide) where we could get postcards and souvenirs.  It was closed. 

We were here.

Then it was back on the bus for the trip back to town. 

We were back on board by noon and the light was fading fast.  We had lunch with a traveling pair, Janet from Redlands CA and Jeff from Phoenix.  They seem to travel (together and separately) as much or more than we do.