A few locals in Kirkenes on Friday morning took their own initiative to 'rename' the street after the killed Russian opposition leader. Mayor Magnus Mæland supports the name-change.
Alexei Navalny died in high security penal colony in northern Russia on Friday. The day before, the exhibition “Faces of Russian Resistance” opened in Kirkenes. The Barents Observer spoke to people who came to pay tribute to the politician after hearing of his death.
You could easily believe you met Russian soldiers wearing winter uniforms with the tricolor flag on the chest. The two were stopped by the police and requested to find more suitable clothing when onshore in Norway.
Consul General Nikolai Konygin had invited to commemorate the Red Army’s liberation of Kirkenes. Environed by Ukrainian flags, the 78th anniversary became very different from previous ceremonies in the Norwegian border town.
A big majority of the EU Parliament Committee of Transport would support the projected railway line from northern Finland to the Norwegian Arctic shore, says MEP Michael Cramer.
The verdict of the court performance staged during the Barents Spektakel festival in Kirkenes is clear: The opening of the Barents Sea to oil drilling is in conflict with the Norwegian Constitution.
The meddling of Russian authorities in Norwegian musician Moddi’s concerts in northern Norway does not pose a threat to cross-border cultural cooperation, says Luba Kuzovnikova, leader of curator group Pikene på Broen.
«Peace does not come by itself», says Nina Karin Skogan as she and a group of companions light up a huge fire just few hundred meters from the Russian border.
Inside this motorcade crossing the border at Storskog Thursday morning is Army General Vladimir Kulishov, one of President Vladimir Putin’s top security officials.
A new book tells the story about how a popular movement gathered the whole community of Kirkenes in a joint protest against heavy pollution from neighboring Nikel. More than two decades later, the winds still bring poisonous sulphur across the border.
VIDEO STORY: “The message that Pussy Riot was trying to spread was a legitimate one,” says the Norwegian musician Pål Moddi Knutsen. Denied inside, his translation of the song was recorded on the church steps in Grense Jakobselv.