The island of Svalbard remains for most Russians a kind of “terra incognita” - uncharted land. Some people even find it difficult to answer the question of the nationality of this territory. Most only know that Svalbard is located somewhere far in the north, beyond the Arctic Circle, and the Russian Federation has some right to it.
Is it worth comparing this island with the Kuril Islands? We will clarify this question below. Despite the location “almost at the North Pole”, travel to Svalbard is quite popular. About when to go to the Arctic shred of land, where to stay and what to see, we will tell in this article.
Where is the island of Svalbard
Let's start with a small correction. The fact is that the definition of "island" in relation to Svalbard will be incorrect. This is an archipelago. It lies only a half hour summer from the North Pole. And so a typical landscape - endless snow desert, permafrost, polar bears.
The archipelago, with a total area of sixty one thousand square kilometers, consists of three large islands, seven small and a large number of very small. Only the largest is truly inhabited - Western Svalbard (37,673 km 2 ). There is the only airport and the capital of the region, the city of Longyearbyen.
In addition to it, in Western Svalbard there are villages: Barentsburg, Ny-Aalesund, Grumant and the Pyramid. The last two are now depopulated. On other islands (Northeast Land, Edge, Barents, Bely, Kongseyya, Wilhelm, Svenskoya) no more than a dozen people live, and even then only in the summer. The population of the entire archipelago does not exceed three thousand people.
Climate
Svalbard island lies in the Arctic Ocean between 76 and 80 degrees north latitude and 10 ° -32 ° east longitude. However, this arrangement does not mean at all that the archipelago is a continuous Arctic desert. Thanks to the Svalbard Current (a branch of the Gulf Stream), the sea near the coast never freezes. The climate in the archipelago is not so severe as in other places at the same latitudes. For example, the average air temperature in January is only 11-15 degrees below zero. In July, the thermometer rises only to +6 ° C.
There are two tourist seasons: from March to May, lovers of winter fun come and want to join the harsh polar winter. They ride snowmobiles, admire the northern lights. From June to August, a completely different audience visits the archipelago. Tourists enjoy a polar day, kayaking among icebergs, watching polar bears. There are also those who consider this archipelago as a transshipment base on the way to conquering the North Pole.
Nature
Norwegians call the island of Svalbard Svalbard, which means "icy land". And the Dutchman Barents named the archipelago not according to climatic characteristics, but according to the relief - “Peaked Mountains”. In the language of the discoverer, it sounds like Spitz-Bergen. The highest point is Newton's Peak. It is located in Western Svalbard. Its height is not too big - 1712 meters, but the geographical position of the mountain turns it into a block of snow covered with snow.
By the way, glaciers cover more than half the area of the entire archipelago. Even in summer you can find islands of snow. The coasts of the islands are indented, many fjords. The vegetation here is typically tundra. There is dwarf birch, polar willow, lichens and mosses. The most common animal is the polar bear. Arctic fox and Svalbard deer (the lowest of all northern species) also live here. Birds mostly fly in the summer. For winter, only a polar partridge remains. But the sea around the coast of Svalbard is teeming with diverse animals. Here there are whales, walruses, belugas, seals.
History
Most likely, the archipelago was discovered by medieval Vikings. In the annals of 1194, a certain region of Svalbard is mentioned. From around the 17th century, the island of Svalbard became known for Pomors. Those called him Grumant. The Dutch navigator Wilhelm Barents opened the archipelago to the world in 1596, although at about the same time islands called the Holy Russians appeared on the maps of our country .
Since the Barents described that he had seen a huge number of whales in the local waters, many fishing vessels rushed to the shores. Soon, Denmark and the United Kingdom began to lay claim to the islands. In the 60s of the eighteenth century, two scientific expeditions organized by M. Lomonosov visited here.
Despite the fact that the Russians did not build a single village here, some Pomors came here in the summer for fishing. When critically few animals remained on the archipelago, the islands were abandoned for a hundred years. A new surge of interest in Svalbard arose at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, when humanity set out to reach the North Pole. The ice-free waters and the relatively mild climate of the island were used by arctic expeditions. Svalbard has become the main starting base.
Svalbard island: to whom does it belong?
When powerful coal deposits were found on the archipelago, interest in the islands lost beyond the Arctic Circle again intensified. But in 1920, the issue of state ownership of land was finally decided by the world. In Paris, the so-called Svalbard treaty was signed, according to which the archipelago departed under the sovereignty of Norway. However, according to this agreement, all parties to the agreement (Great Britain, USA, France, Japan, Sweden, Italy, the Netherlands and later the USSR) reserved the right to develop mineral resources.
Do I need a visa to visit the archipelago?
Theoretically, no. It doesn’t matter whose island is Spitsbergen, citizens of all the above signatory countries can freely visit the archipelago. However, in practice, getting to Spitsbergen straight from Russia is not so easy. Only in season charter flights are rarely sent there, and seats on airplanes are reserved for polar explorers or civil servants. Therefore, tourists are forced to fly through Oslo (by SAS and Norwegian Airlines). And this requires a multiple Schengen visa to enter Norway. You can visit the archipelago during a luxury cruise on the ocean liner "Captain Khlebnikov".
Tourism
The Norwegian authorities quickly reoriented the economy of the archipelago in the face of a decrease in the number of whales and polar bears and falling coal prices. Now the main bet on ecotourism. The direction is new. So far, only two thousand tourists annually visit the cold islands. Not conducive to the development of this industry and prices. Everything is expensive here: from a hotel room (the simplest economy option will cost one hundred dollars a night) to food. However, this does not stop rich tourists. Ascent to glaciers, sea rafting, dog sledding, collecting fossils (there are a lot of them on the archipelago) - all this is included in the mandatory program.
The islands are a duty free trade zone. Thanks to her, the population of the archipelago lives more prosperous than the Norwegians on the continent. The island of Svalbard is protected from labor migrants. Work at many mines has been discontinued and they have been converted into museums. Only Russian miners do not stop coal production. Although this production is unprofitable and is subsidized by the state.
Money scandal
In 1993, the Moscow yard minted the commemorative coin Svalbard Island. It depicted a polar bear and a map of the archipelago. Since the inscription “Russian Federation” was on the money, Norway took it as an encroachment on its territory. The diplomatic scandal was exhausted only when this money was withdrawn from circulation. The coins remaining in the hands of collectors are in high demand.