The Governor of Svalbard constantly complains in the press that foreigners (mostly refugees who have been denied asylum and are subject to deportation) reach the archipelago by hook or by crook and expect the benefits of the world's most prosperous country to shower down on them. But Svalbard does not have Norway's social welfare system. Therefore, newcomers essentially fall into the distant past, when people could settle anywhere but no one took care of them.
New arrivals are greeted by Svalbard's capital – the settlement of Longyearbyen, a tiny village whose only street is lined with wooden prefab houses. As in any civilized populated area, there are road signs here – both of them warning signs. One depicts a snowmobile, the other a polar bear.
On the doors of the pharmacy, shop, and restaurant hang signs reminiscent of Jack London's times: "No firearms allowed!" By the way, everyone in Longyearbyen has a rifle – it is mandatory protection against "bears in the North," which occasionally wander into the archipelago's capital and eat some residents. The latter are not many even without sacrifices to wild nature – about two thousand. Mostly they are miners working at two local coal mines, an industry that Norway supports to assert its sovereignty over these islands in the icy Arctic.
Along Longyearbyen's only avenue wander foreigners of the most exotic hues – from chocolate and yellow to anthracite – in search of housing and work. "Need laundry done?.. I teach yoga… I can introduce a fried locust menu in your restaurant…" Offers of the widest range rain down on the locals.
Credit must be given to the local Norwegians: they are generous and responsive people. Even if there is no work, they try to provide it. As a result, for two thousand legal residents of the polar capital, there are three hundred foreigners who in any other part of Europe would be immediately caught and sent home. "It's cold and dark here; during the polar night there's nothing to do. Only the hotel, the pub, and the shop are open," the NRK news agency recently reported the feelings of a Filipina about life in the "visa-free" territory. Nevertheless, none of the voluntary polar inhabitants plan to leave the archipelago. It's even worse at home.
Moreover, according to the fugitives, they are helped to survive in Longyearbyen by the knowledge that there is another capital nearby – Russia's Barentsburg, with a population of six hundred. They sometimes have it even worse than the uninvited visa-free residents of Longyearbyen who take any job. The miners in Barentsburg have no money at all – their salaries are transferred to the mainland, so even a phone call home or sending a letter creates insurmountable obstacles. Fresh vegetables and fruits, as in the Norwegian capital, are not to be found in Barentsburg. Nor are good snowmobiles to ride around the area. And yet, people live.
Therefore, when refugees are consumed by deep polar melancholy and the feeling of life in a cage becomes unbearable, they saddle up their Yamaha snowmobiles and travel 60 kilometers to Barentsburg for a course of peculiar psychotherapy. One sightseeing tour of the Russian places is enough to keep them pulling the polar sledge for another season.
Alexei Smirnov.
Novye Izvestia