The Artic Sea by Barentsburg

It is an adventure to leave the biggest village on Svalbard - Longyearbyen, which is Norwegian - to go by snowmobile to the Russian settlement Barentsburg. The distance is about 60 km. If you drive fast you can get there in less than 2 hours. However, driving slow is nicer since there is alot to see on the way.

Since there is midnightsun on Svalbard at this time of the year, we could start our trip late at night and scooter along the sea until long after midnight.



There are about 500 inhabitants in Barentsburg. Most of them used to work in the coalmine, which is closed at the moment due to a fire where people died. The mine will not open until late 2009 at the earliest. While the mine is closed, the workers are assigned to tidy up the village by painting houses and cleaning everything up. It was hard to tell if this job had started or not... Many buildings are not inhabited, and many windows are broken.



Barentsburg is one of the most different places I have ever visited. We only saw 5 or 6 persons - all men - walking slowly through the village. They came from the sports centre, which is said to have swimmingpools and a footballground. Actually one woman passed by on a distance, dressed in a grey wintercoat.



The museum was closed - natural in the middle of the night... - and so was the bar.

The worlds second most northern statue of Lenin overlooked the village. We stayed for a little while to take pictures and absorb the special athmosphere and look at the architecture. Then we returned back to Longyearbyen.










While snowmobiling between these two different places, we passed by the Arctic Sea. It was magic. Lots of icebergs in the black sea and white mountains in the background. Beauty and silence...