“Digesting the world’s borders …One bite at a time” The northernmost external border of the Schengen zone in connental Europe lies above the 69th parallel north, running between Norway and Russia. Despite its remoteness, the hosle climac condions and sparse populaon density, unl recently this borderland was seen as an example of im- proved relaons between West and East. Such a reputaon greatly relied on the Barents Euro-Arcc region – an instuonal frame- work that came into being in 1993 to replace Cold War confrontaon with collaboraon. Years of coordinated joint acvies among the northern parts of Finland, Norway, Russia and Sweden resulted in numerous social networks, simplified border-crossing rules for Barents’ residents and, as some argue, the creaon of a disnct Barents identy “concentrated in the triangle Kirkenes–Murmansk–Rovaniemi”1. BORDER BITES Since perestroika and the opening of the formerly closed border, contacts between border municipalies - Pechenga Rayon (Murmansk Oblast, Rus- sia) and Sør-Varanger commune (Finnmark fylke, Norway) - have been in- tense and diverse. Although local cross-border interacons have never City twinning on the Russian‐ Norwegian border: from neighbours to twin cies and back been the focus for Barents’ cooperaon, on several occasions border mu- nicipalies have played the role of trailblazers in exercising transfroner lifestyle and cross-border cooperaon (hereinaer CBC). In this piece I trace the dynamics of a recent border-blurring experiment that was iniat- Ekaterina ed and agreed upon naonally and implemented locally – the launch of the twin city relaonship. To provide a more grounded analysis, I use both sec- ondary sources as well as empirical data (interviews and a survey) collect- Mikhailova ed in the Russian-Norwegian borderland in 2013-2016. As the concept of twin cies sll causes more controversy than agreement Lomonosov Moscow in academic debates, let me clarify that in this piece twin city is under- stood as a rather demanding type of intercity relaonship which implies State University coordinated strategies and acon plans towards building joint future, com- bined with grassroots networking and mutual empathy of residents. Typi- cally, in the context of internaonal twin cies, the selements involved in ———————————————————————————————————————————— 1 Heikkilä, M. (2014) “Editorial: Tesng the Barents identy” Barents Studies Supplemen- tary Issue. [Online] Available from: hps://lauda.ulapland.fi/bitstream/ handle/10024/59414/barents_pop_3_Tesng-the-barents-identy_screen.pdf? Seventh Course sequence=2 [Accessed: 20th March 2017] . 1 twinning are cies adjacent to the border and to each other. In contrast to twin cies, neighbouring cies do not have strict limitaons in terms of their geographical proximity and eagerness to work together towards a joint future. Keeping these definions in mind, let me proceed with the case analysis. Figure 1: Map of the Barents region and border municipalies on the Russian- Norwegian border. Image by Øystein Rø, Transborder studio BORDER BITES Nikel and Kirkenes: establishing a tradion of cross‐border dialogue Today, the administrave centers of the border municipalies of Nikel and Kirkenes, small Arcc towns 57 km apart from each other, have coexisted for about eight decades (for populaon details see the Table below). Their City twinning period as neighbours includes a number of shared experiences, such as early mining specializaon, transformaon into strategic outposts and on the Russian‐ balefields during the Second World War, and liberaon within the same military operaon by the Red Army. Aer liberaon, these border sele- Norwegian ments faced off along one of the most isolated Soviet froners – the only one that separated the Soviet Union from a founding member of the North border Atlanc Treaty Organizaon. As interviews show, at that me residents of both towns felt as if they were living at the edge of the world. Country, total Russia 146,674,541 Norway 5,258,317 Border region Murmansk Oblast 756,897 Finnmark fylke 75,758 Regional capital Murmansk 299,834 Vadsø 5,107 Ekaterina Border municipality Pechenga Rayon 37,181 Sør-Varanger 10,199 Municipal center Nikel 11,600 Kirkenes 3,564 Mikhailova Other towns in the Zapolyarny 15,202 Bjørnevatn 2,528 border municipality Pechenga 2,936 Hesseng 1,780 Table 1: Populaon stascs for the Russian-Norwegian cross-border region (by January 2017, based on Russia’s Federal State Stascs Service and Stascs Norway) Although such a historical background suggests that before the 1990s the border was a sealed barrier, according to survey results, one third of in- formants see the contemporary intermunicipal cooperaon as a connua- Seventh Course on of Soviet-Norwegian dialogue. Construcon of the Boris Gleb hydro- 2 power plant on the Pasvik river by Norwegian specialists in 1960-1964 was the main interstate collaboraon project during the Cold War period. The state border runs through the middle of that river and hence down the centre of the Boris Gleb dam. Not long aer the dam was built, in 1973 the border municipalies signed their first cooperaon agreement. Since then communicaon between Pechenga Rayon and Sør-Varanger commune has taken on various forms – from delegaon exchanges in the 1980s, humani- tarian aid flowing from Norway to Russia, parcularly to these neighbour- ing region in early 1990s (aer the dissoluon of the Soviet Union and the consequent worsening of the economic situaon on the Russian side), to joint project work from 2000s onwards. Cooperave es among border municipalies were popping up in all spheres of life – from arts to health care. I’ll provide a few examples that proved acve and durable, and have become flagships of Russian- Norwegian local collaboraon. One of the pioneers of cooperaon were municipal libraries, whose representaves first met back in 1983. Their un- quenchable enthusiasm helped to put their dialogue on a regular foong and to maintain it without external funding or in- volvement from naonal, BORDER BITES regional or local authori- es. Border libraries proved to be highly experi- mental and tried out joint seminars for experience transfer, temporary ex- City twinning changes of books, employ- ees, whole exhibions and on the Russian‐ other material, as well as ideas and best pracces. Norwegian The sphere of pre-school Figure 2: Kirkenes central square is dominated with the border educaon presents another Sør-Varanger library, the frontrunner of local example of long standing cross-border cooperaon since 1983. All photos CBC. Ties between kinder- by the author unless otherwise stated. gartens evolved from direct contacts in the 1990s to coordinated partnerships supervised by the two city halls. Seeking to share the experience of cross-cultural exchange with the whole borderland community, from early 2000s kindergartens started arranging an annual joint exhibion of children’s drawings called “Russia and Norway through children’s eyes”. Aer being displayed in Kirkenes in Ekaterina the Borderland Museum for half a year, the exhibion is relocated to Nikel. The other borderland ‘brand’ is an internaonal twelve-kilometer long ski- Mikhailova ing-track called ‘The Ski of Friendship’ that takes place annually at the tri- border point where Norway, Finland and Russia meet. Coined by the Gen- eral Consul of Russia in Kirkenes, the idea for such a compeon received governmental support from all countries involved and has been aracng hundreds of parcipants annually since 1994. Looking just at these three examples, one may conclude that two municipalies developed various connecons long before the twin city iniave arrived to the Russian- Seventh Course Norwegian borderland. 3 Figure 3: An identical copy of the tri‐border point where Russia, Norway and Finland meet was erected in front of the municipal administration in Nikel in 2015. Twin city between Nikel and Kirkenes ‐ a temporary project? BORDER BITES The idea of twin city es between Nikel and Kirkenes was formulated in an instrucon leer sent from the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs to the mayor of Sør-Varanger. In 2008, as soon as the iniave received that support among municipal and naonal authories on both sides of the border, the Pechenga Rayon and Sør-Varanger communes declared the City twinning start of collaboraon in a twin city project. Within the first five years of interacon under the twin city project umbrella, rhetoric about twinning on the Russian‐ was widely present on both sides of the border. The two municipalies tried fostering their es by re-engineering exisng cooperave ventures Norwegian and by incorporang actors that hadn’t yet taken part in transfroner ac- vies. Ties were intensified through the launch of working groups to co- border ordinate cooperaon in parcular fields, and through so-called ‘mobile seminars’ - seminars ‘on wheels’ that took place on both sides of the bor- der, with parcipants moving from one city to the other (and crossing the border) together, and brainstorming on their way. Several organizaons, such as register offices, museums and voluntary associaons, met their counterparts from the other side of the border for the first me through these iniaves. At that me, there were a number of events sporng the ‘twin city’ label. Ekaterina Some scholars have assumed that the use of this prefix for any type of co- operaon between Nikel and Kirkenes was evidence of the intenon of the two municipalies to apply for European funding2, as similar local integra- Mikhailova on projects have been quite successful in acquiring EU funds. However, such expectaons have not been borne out (yet). The understanding of the twin city iniave as being “just a temporary project” only crystalized aer 2013. In interviews, both sides emphasized ———————————————————————————————————————————— 2 Figenschou, A. (2011). The Twin Cies of Petchenga Rayon and Sør-Varanger Municipal- Seventh Course ity. Master Thesis. The Faculty of Humanies. University of Oslo. 4 that intermunicipal co- operaon was iniated much earlier than the twinning project, and that its scope today is more extensive.