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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Joenniemi & Sergunin
Kirkenes and Nikel to turn into a twin city for such an arrangement to be part of the zone-
arrangement (Haugseth, 2013). As a consequence, and following success in the talks between the
two municipalities, the twinning between Kirkenes and Nikel was approved by the Norwegian and
Russian foreign ministers at their meeting in Kirkenes on 9 June 2008 (Pogoretskaya, 2008). The
same day a joint statement on the prospects of twinning was issued by the Sør-Varanger and
Pechenga leaders (Sovmestnoe zayavlenie o sotrudnichestve, 2008).
More specifically, the 2008 agreement on twinning covered cooperative areas, such as: support for
small and medium-size enterprises (SMEs); establishment of a joint Business Cooperation Center in
Nikel; environmental protection; health care (including direct cooperative schemes between
municipal hospitals); education (direct links between elementary and secondary schools); training
programs for municipal officials; tourism; cultural festivals and exhibitions; library and museum
cooperation; mass media cooperation; women and youth cooperation; and sports (Soglashenie o
razvitii druzhestvennyx svjazey, 2008; Smirnova, 2008).
In spring 2011, the agreement was updated by the two municipalities and an action plan for 2011-
2012 was adopted. It was decided to focus on priorities such as support for SMEs; creation of a
common labor market; good governance practice at the municipal level; educational projects; culture
(including the festival
Barents Spectacle
, regular art exhibitions, library and museum cooperation, and
joint festivities to commemorate the Murmansk and Finnmark regions‘ liberation from German
occupation in 1944) and sports (ice hockey and football tournaments, and swimming competitions).
Special attention was paid to early preparations for the introduction of the visa-free regime for the
border regions‘ residents (establishing a special corridor for border resident card holders at the
Borisoglebsk-Storskog border-crossing, liberalization of the customs regime in the border zone, etc.)
(Plan sotrudnichestva, 2011; Lebed, 2011).
The new leadership of the Sør-Varanger community elected in the municipal elections in 2011
confirmed its adherence to both the above agreement and action plan (Belova, 2011). In addition,
the partners decided to opt for a new action plan by the fall of 2013.
The way twinning emerged in the case of Kirkenes-Nikel points to the fact that the two towns were
in general expected to contribute to a demise of the divisive effects of the Norwegian-Russian
border and to generate experiences applicable more generally to the cooperation between Norway
and Russia. They have been invited to implement spatial strategies that contribute to the emergence
of a bridgehead towards Russia, a common trans-border area, and an integrated borderland in order
for the experiences then also to be utilized in other spheres of Norwegian-Russian cooperation in
the North. The two towns are expected to reach beyond their national role and connect the local
with the international through their particularly close relations in terms of twinning.
In general, the strategy of twinning as a form of inter-town and inter-municipal cooperation seems
to boil down to three issue-areas: capacity-building (aiming at developing various capabilities of the
parties); problem-solving (cooperation in functional areas with the aim to ensure sustainable
development); and cultural interaction in order for negative perceptions of the neighbor to be down-
graded and familiarity to be up-graded.