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Top: Regional: Russian settlements on Svalbard  (28)

There is a whole Russian town - Barentsburg - on Svalbard, not far from Longyearbyen. Russia maintains coal mines on the island. About a thousand Russians and Ukrainians currently live there (population statistics over 1990-98).

• Russian non-military base - article on vesti.ru (2001).
• What the ministers haven't seen, The Change, When I was a Norwegian postman - essays about Barentsburg by Eugene Buzni. This is insider's look at the life of Russian settlement. The author worked there as an interpreter and administrative employee for nine years.
• About Spitsbergen on the site of Russian Embassy.
• Mousetrap for the airliner - article in Ogonyok about Russian plane crash on Svalbard on August 29, 1996.
  • Report by the Arktikugol administrator who was waiting for the plane in the airport.
• Pulling out of Pyramiden - article by BBC News about abandoning the second Russian coal-mining settlement (2000).
• Green Harbour - Ankershamn - Barentsburg - history of the post offices in Barentsburg and Pyramiden.
• Russian whalers and hunters on Svalbard - Tora Hultgreen claims in her doctoral thesis that the oldest found archaeological traces of Russians were from early 18th century.
• Pictures:
  • Barentsburg, with comments.
  • Barentsburg, with comments.
  • Flybussen i Barentsburg - Russian airport bus.
  • Pyramiden photographed by Artemy Lebedev.
  • Barentsburg
  • Grumant, Barentsburg
  • Barentsburg
  • Geological expedition to West Spitsbergen (1991)
  • Geological expedition to Spitsbergen (1991)
  • Expedition to Greenland sea (2000)
• Money issued by Arktikugol:
  • Coins 1998
  • Notes 1961, 1946
  • Notes 1961
  • Coins 1946
• Swimming marathon of "Polar Bears" in the gulf of Isfjord - organized by the Federation of health training and winter swimming of Russia in August 2001.
• Elin Amundsen from NTNU collects clothing and other things for the inhabitants of Barentsburg (2002).

You don't need visa to stay on Svalbard. However, if you fly via Norway, a transit visa may be necessary.