Translated material
The archipelago of presence
"You can’t be born and die here" - Mlanie Bachina's film about the polar Svaldbergen
Spitsbergen or Svalbard (Norv.) - a place where a person does not belong. The archipelago is part of Norway, but any resident of the planet can come here and can work here. Although no one can buy property here: a house or land. You can only rent. Here, as the locals say, "you cannot be born and cannot die." There are no maternity hospitals on Spitsbergen, and, according to the law, they don’t bury anyone here: there is an eternal permafrost in which the remains do not decompose, and this can become a bait for white bears. There are no smells and trees, and those that are, fewer mushrooms. Here winter is called at night, and summer - during the day.
On a polar day, closer to midnight, the sun here seems to go crazy and stands high above the horizon. And the polar night, they say, the moon is always complete and falls so low that it seems that you can touch her hand. The night here is long and cold. Therefore, when at the end of February the first sunlight just begin to break through, all the conversations are only about the sun. "Have you already seen the sun?" - people ask each other, meeting in the supermarket.
Barentsburg
Spitsbergen has a special international status. According to the agreement signed at the beginning of the twentieth century, the archipelago became part of Norway, but everyone who signed this document received the right to freely engage in economic or scientific activities on this land. Coal is mined on Svalbard. And, despite the fact that about 50 countries signed the contract, it was historically so that only two countries are obtained on the archipelago: Norway and Russia.
This coal, by and large, is not needed by anyone. But if Russia stops mining it, it will have to leave the archipelago. The income from the sale of coal is small, so in the prey and maintenance of miners, the Arcticugol trust and the entire village of Barentsburg on the Russian Svalzbergen have to invest budget money. In fact, the country pays for its presence on Spitsbergen.
Most miners in Barentsburg are Ukrainians from Donbass
Once the USSR invested money in the maintenance of three villages on the archipelago, whose population reached four thousand people. Today, only one village survived - Barentsburg. Grumant is dead. The village of Pyramid is mothballed. There, only 8 people live on Polar's day, who meet and drive around the ghost city, as they also call the pyramid, excursions.
Denis Bobarykin
“There is not such an abandonment as in many villages of the same Russia or Siberia, where I come from,” says the young guide Denis Bobarykin. He has been living in the pyramid for the second year. He was only 22. He came from Barnaul for a couple of months, and remained for two years now. There are many such stories here. As a rule, to the question: "Why is this happening?" - They answer here, shrugging his shoulders: "Arctic."
Pyramid or "Ghost city", Western Spitsbergen
People left the pyramid in 1998. After the collapse of the Soviet Empire, in order to contain a pyramid, Russia did not have the village and the village was mothballed. The story of how the pyramid is empty is overgrown with many legends on Svalbard. Norwegians, for example, say that people left, throwing everything: books in the library, personal belongings and even sheets on beds. The Russians deny this and assure that personal items and books from the pyramid are still taken away. But not one of the parties denies the facts of looting. While the pyramid was empty for several years, a lot has been taken out of it, for example, Lenin’s bust from the House of Culture is now standing in the Longyir bar.
In the only "living" village belonging to Russia - Barentsburg - about 500 people live now, mostly miners from eastern Ukraine, from Donetsk and Lugansk.
Yuri Tsilenko
"We do not divide here into Russians and Ukrainians, those who are from the DPR or LPR, and those who are from Western Ukraine. We are miners. Our task is to obtain coal," says Shakhtar Yuri Tsilenko, who came to the archipelago back in 2002. His wife and children live in Kyiv. And he is on Svalbern, and is not going to go home yet: "This is my house. But I know that sooner or later I will leave this house, and I know that it will be very difficult."
Mine of the Trust "Arcticugol", Barentsburg
How Russians and Ukrainians live on Spitsbergen, what are their relations with the Norwegians, why the Russians hold on to this Arctic land and pay for their presence in the archipelago - in the film Melanie Bachina.
Barentsburg