"It's time to take Freud home!"

The Norwegian pensioner was detained by the FSB on charges of espionage. A campaign begins in his native town, which will soon become national

“I know him from the age of 12, when I started playing in a school orchestra. He was always for friendship and cooperation between people of different countries. This business is very gloomy and seems politically motivated. It's time to take Freud home! " - writes about his parishioner the pastor of the border Norwegian town of Kirkenes Torbiern Weber. Torbjern speaks not only as a pastor. Today he, along with all members of the community, is ready to stand the defense of a fellow countryman. A small city stubbornly defends a little man. Not embarrassing how the forces are unequal: on the other side of the conflict, a large country in Russia in the person of its strongest special services.

Norwegian pensioner Frude Berg became the hero of all news releases and editorials of national newspapers. On December 19, the Russian press reported that he was detained in Moscow on charges of espionage. Until February 6, he will be in Lefortovo.

Countrymen are called absurd. “Frude Berg is an honest man,” the Facebook of the mayor of the commune Rune Raphaelsen. The Berg's Protection campaign began in Kirkenes, but, obviously, will capture the whole country.

Slogans such as "Norwegians do not throw their own!" Here, of course, you will not hear. But number of the ordinary Norwegian has become a hostage to great politics, they are going to help it out the whole world.

In Kirkenes 3,500 inhabitants. About a third - Russian emigrants. In the port, Russian fishermen and crabolists are unloaded. The names of the streets in two languages ​​- Russian and Norwegian. On Saturdays, in three local supermarkets, Russians make the cashier - they used to come for diapers, now - for the "sanctions". Russia at 30 km. Every morning a barrier rises there - the border is open. At night it sinks again. Previously, the Russian checkpoint Borisoglebsk was like a cold barn. In the 90s, the Norwegians financed the construction of a new one-they wanted to do it in their own way, but it turned out in Russian. Dull lamps, gray walls and five barriers. In the building of the Norwegian Chek-Pontent Sturskug, coffee smells of coffee. The walls are sheathed with wood. On the windows are funny curtains. Border guards chat with fellow countrymen intersecting the border - they go to Russia to refuel cheap gasoline.

At Sturskuga, Frude Berg served for a quarter century. Two years ago, as soon as 60 turned out, he retired, but not from the border: he remained in the Russian-Norwegian commission for its arrangement. Frude is a person literally responsible for the border line: it passes between the two countries along the rivers, and therefore is mobile. Water not only sharpens the stone, but also changes the fairway of the fairway. To fix these changes and, accordingly, the exact coordinates of the invisible dotted line was his work. Work that has always done along with Russian colleagues.

Frude Berg in the Border of the Person. More than once he gave comments to reporters about disputed situations on the border - and even criticized for excessive peace: for example, when Norway decided to fence off from Russia, Fruda was sharply against. He is always for a dialogue.

Having recovered, he got involved in the dialogue of cultures: he helped organize a large border art festival “Barents Prime”, entered the board of the Pikene Pa Broen curated agency (“Girls on the bridge”), which organizes international art projects.

“He was an expert for us, indispensable and unique, because he could tell artists what it means to live and work on the border line, he was a bridge between Russia and Norway, because, regardless of the political regime, he worked in the space where the dialogue always needed, and his attitude towards Russia did not depend on the coloring of interstate relations,” says Lyubov Kuzuznikov, art director of Pikene-he He sees people in the neighbors, regardless of the positions of Oslo and Moscow.

Fruda, as it should be euro-retail, traveled. He visited Armenia, which he had fallen in love with the volunteer of the Red Cross, wrote a book about her. Lyuba says 8 chapters have already been made in a grave. He loved Russia, often went to friends.

This is only Russian border guards of a disorder. Norwegian "carriers of secrets" are quite free in movements. Which, apparently, is difficult to understand the Chekists. The border guard, conducting the weekend in Russia, is probably a spy in their logic.

Not in the Dominican Republic, not in Thailand. True, why in Moscow to look for information about the Russian Navy (namely such a legend from the filing of an “anonymous source” is broadcast by media), when under the side of Murmansk, Severomorsk and Severodvinsk, it is difficult to understand. And it is completely incomprehensible how the carrier of these military secrets could become a 24-year-old former metropolitan district Zhitniuk (the Ukrainian surname becomes an aggravating circumstance), whom all the same “anonymous sources” call the informant Frude, who worked in addition to the CIA (!). Meanwhile, he almost handed Berg “secret documents”, and the Norwegian was allegedly taken with red -handed.

True, as the lawyer Berga Brinulf Risnesses notes, this very Zhitnyuk, according to open sources, at the time of Berg disappeared, had been sitting on Lefortovo for two weeks on charges of Gosizmen.

Frude was detained on December 5. On this day, he posted several types of Red Square on Facebook and was the last time in touch with his family. In theory, the next day he was supposed to return to Cicrens after a short visit to his friends. But instead, on December 6, the Lefortovo court of Moscow arrested him for 2 months. The family became aware of the detention only by the end of the week. And nothing - about the article on which Berg was arrested.

- It is alarm that I allegedly had an alarm in the court to choose a preventive measure for a preventive measure - obviously, the lawyer for the appointment, ”says Brinyulf Risness. - We understand that in this case it is unlikely that we have to count on an independent defender. In addition, I do not know whether the translator was provided Berg, and he very poorly understands in Russian. Of course, we want his interests to represent a qualified and truly independent lawyer. We hope that in Moscow Ilya Novikov will represent the interests of Fruda.

The information that Novikov would enter the Berg on Thursday was distributed by TASS, but the lawyer himself has not yet commented on it.

When asked about the acquaintance of the Norwegian with the Russian Zhitnyuk, Brinulf Risney replies: Berg's relatives have never heard this name from him. Berg went to Russia to visit friends. It seems that these friends were Russian ex-border guards, with whom Berg is familiar with the previous job.

The latter is alarming in Lyubov Kuzuznikova. She regrets that she did not have time to ask Frude to whom he was going to, and why the voyage is so short-only 2-3 days. He suspects that the invitation to visit could be a provocation of special services. As for the legal assistance that Berg allegedly received during the detention, she also speaks skeptical. The fact is that, according to the family, the detainee after the trial was forced by his own hand-in Norwegian-draw up an appeal. It will be considered only in the new year.

The Norwegian Borderland History Frude Berg shocked the story. And mobilized.

“Kirkenes will stand for him,” Kuzuznikova is sure.

The mayor of Rune Rafaelsen, he published an open letter to Prime Minister Erne Sulberg demanding to enter into negotiations with Putin and the Russian Foreign Ministry on the release of Berg. So far, Frude is the first person who received the media status of the Norwegian Spy. The only one who was judged for the issuance of Norway GOSTIN was an ecologist, the captain of the 1st Range, Alexander Nikitin, who published a report on the radioactive infection of the Russian North in cooperation with Bellona. In April 2000, Nikitin was justified.

Previously, in the Norwegians we saw neighbors, not enemies. The cooling after the Crimean Spring led to a natural result.

What three years ago was called international cooperation and folk diplomacy, for any ordinary Norwegian tourist, can turn into an arrest closed by the court and many years of imprisonment. Yes, in fact, for Russians who have close contacts in Scandinavia, Berg's business is not a very rainbow sign.

For the 100th anniversary of the Cheka, proven methods are remembered-as if to fall on lovers of “sanctions” sentences for “espionage in favor of German, Japanese, Norwegian and Finnish intelligence”.