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Arctic Yearbook 2013
Joenniemi & Sergunin
different countries and peoples of the Barents region with the goal to develop a common
Barents/Arctic culture. Along with cultural, the festival has a clear political connotation: to
encourage the states and people of the region to solve existing disputes over territories, borders,
natural resources, environmental problems, etc., in a peaceful and non-violent way.
For example, the
Barents Spektakel 2013
had a title ‗Ticking Barents‘ that was explained by the
organizers in the following way: ―[w]hat is ticking, one might ask. The Arctic is hotter than ever and
definitely ticking!‖ The organizers called for a
revolution on ice
to solve the most compelling Arctic
problems: ―[t]he festival plays out alternative social structures and local formats of communal self-
organization: A revolution in our mind, a revolution as a community-building process‖ (ibid).
In addition to the
Barents Spektakel,
the two twinning communities have established numerous direct
contacts between local writers, poets, artists, actors, dancers, libraries and museums that formed a
dense network of cultural cooperative ties in the region.
The twinning communities have to include to their cooperative plans indigenous people as well. For
example, there is a small Skolt Sami village of Neiden which is – being a part of the Sør-Varanger
community – located on the Norwegian-Finnish border. The Skolts form a minority group among
the Sami and are distinct from other groups in a number of ways. There are approximately 1000
Skolt Sami in Northern Europe: 600 live in Finland, 250 in Russia and 15 in Norway. The Russian
culture has had a strong influence on the Skolts, who adopted Christianity in its Eastern Orthodox
form in the 16th century. The Skolt Sami language is highly endangered and not spoken actively in
Neiden today. Almost all speakers live in Finland. The protected area around Neiden includes a
number of different monuments, including a tiny (13 square meters) Russian Orthodox St. Georg‘s
Chapel built by Tryphon of Pechenga in 1565.
The
Skolt Sami culture across borders
, a cooperative project between Finland, Norway and Russia, was
launched in 2010. Its aim is to contribute to a strengthening and revitalization of Skolt Sami culture,
language and identity (Skoltsami website). The project offices are located in Sevettijärvi (Finland),
Neiden (Norway) and Murmansk (Russia). The visitors from Murmansk and the Pechenga district
visit Neiden on the regular basis (Oboishikova, 2011).
There was a considerable increase in familiarity between twinning communities as a result of the
above cultural interactions. For instance, Kirkenes, consisting of some 7,000 inhabitants but
growing, has in fact been a major meeting-point for Russian-Norwegian contacts since the 1990s on
a variety of levels and in different forms. It is multicultural in the sense that in addition to a
Norwegian majority, there is a Sami population in the region, a considerable number of Finnish-
speakers around as well as an increasing number of Russians and Russian-speakers in the town and
its vicinity. The latter group amounts to some ten per cent of the town‘s population (Rogova 2008:
29).
It appears also that a considerable number of Russians living in the Murmansk region nowadays
view the Norwegian-Russian border in terms of a shared borderland. The border has turned far less
divisive not just politically and in administrative terms, but also culturally and identity-wise.
Anastasia Rogova (2009: 31) claims that a borderland has emerged ―which is neither Russia, nor