This blog was contributed by Jack Reid, a playwright and director who is currently researching for an M.Res in Creative Practice at Inverness College UHI. His research investigates Russian Arctic communities on Svalbard. Find out more at https://jackreiddirecting.squarespace.com/about
The town of Barentsburg is a mining settlement of the Russian Federation, located in the Norwegian territory of Svalbard, at the top of 220 steps. It is a surprisingly difficult climb and my guide says it’s how the locals keep fit, by the time we’re halfway up and the freezing air is making it a struggle. As I stop to catch my breath, I look across the sloping tundra to see a very old, very ruined dacha. I ask about it, eliciting a slightly annoyed reply:
“It’s abandoned, we would love nothing more than to take it apart but it’s a protected building.”
I soon learn what he is referring to is Section 39 of the Svalbard Environmental Protection Act - which outlaws the demolition of structures predating 1943. Speaking as a writer with a strong interest in both Arctic and Russian history, I found this idea of legislated decay, the legal right to ruination, to be incredibly interesting. Barentsburg has a few of these structures; the town was bought from the Swedish in 1927 along with its sister town Pyramiden. Both these settlements were developed as mining towns to supply the northern regions of the USSR with coal. Although supporting these Arctic communities were a net-loss for the Soviets, these settlements served the dual purpose of being propaganda towns, showcasing the advancements of communist society to the West, and being geopolitical footholds in a NATO member state. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, these settlements were hit hard by the austerity that followed, culminating in 1998 when Pyramiden was closed and its residents were evacuated. Barentsburg remained operational, although its population has fallen to an average of 500 Russians and Ukrainians, along with some seasonal workers.
Today, Barentsburg exists in many different worlds and contradictions; an old sign proclaiming their devotion to communist teachings fronts newly cladded blue and orange apartments, the Stalinist consulate building sits next to the walled citadel equivalent of the Russian Federation, a bust of Vladimir Lenin overlooks the Church of the Holy Image of Edessa. The tension between past and present is a fact of life for this northern extremity of a global power, existing as a small part of a wider political battle being fought for arctic supremacy.
On Svalbard, the cultural and historic ruins of the past have an unusually long lifespan; the arctic climate preserves buildings extremely well. The ruins of Barentsburg may no longer serve anything other than an aesthetic purpose (or a nuisance, depending on who you ask) but they will be part of the town for decades to come and may permanently have a place in the landscape - they outlasted the Soviet Union, they may well outlast its successor states. These ruins prompt a dual aesthetic, revealing the glaring differences and shared continuities between the old and new Russia. The imposing KGB offices are now worker housing, the gift shop is stocked with kitsch ‘Back to the USSR’ T-shirts and local women sell arctic handicrafts of carved polar bears to tourists like me. By contrast, the Soviet mission to transform the Arctic by exploiting its resources looks both parts misguided and dangerous in the face of present-day climate crisis, yet this is much the same policy continued by the Russian Federation - although they are far from the only exploiters in the arctic region.
When faced with these fragile structures that are the embodiment of entropy, the warnings of civilisational collapse are clear. Svalbard’s history is one of ruins; from the Russian Pomors who set up seasonal hunting colonies, to the defunct mines of Longyearbyen. Nothing here is forever, everything is the domain of nature. Norway may hold sole sovereignty over Svalbard, but all are equally at the mercy of an environment that punishes attempts at human colonisation. In this context, ruins are not just a connection to the past, but symbols of immense struggle for a people to exist and thrive against the odds.
On the boat back to Longyearbyen, we pass Grumant - the often overlooked third Russian settlement on Svalbard. Abandoned in 1965 due to the extreme cost of maintaining a small outpost with lackluster operation, Grumant’s buildings seem to bleed downwards towards the water, sloping like the steep landscape, coming apart after decades of decay. I am reminded by this journey that ruination is not only the study of a decayed and distant past but also of the certain future; that the destiny of all things is to end. The decay could take many years but it is inescapable. As we pull away from the shore, I can see Svalbard reindeer, hardier and smaller than their European counterparts, moving through the ruins. The fate of human structures and societies may be ruination and decay, but for the natural world there is only reclamation and growth, the end of one epoch always leads to another.
References
Hylgeriak, (2015), Abandoned russian settlement of Grumant, Svalbard [ONLINE]. Available at: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grumant_july2011_3.jpg [Accessed 8 December 2019].