The Long Arm of War in the Arctic

Its remoteness is the first thing. From the air, it is the only thing—metamorphic rock pushing against the last stands of conifer and birch along Norway's Arctic coast. Below me is a world jumping off into the sea. Human presence feels unlikely here. Yet in this remote region where tundra and taiga vie for dominance sits a town called Kirkenes, seven miles from the Russian border.A bear mounted in attack pose stands guard over the baggage carousel at the tiny Kirkenes Airport, daring us to pick up our luggage. I grab my duffel bag and head out into bone-chilling Arctic wind. The cold air stings. It is June 2024.Snow sits still on the mountains.I am 2,000 miles and four countries away from the war in Ukraine, 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and at the northernmost end of 124 miles of forest and rock, of taiga and tundra that bond the Arctic landscapes of Norway and Russia together. Russia, they tell me casually at the airport, is just down the road—the no-big-deal comment that tells you to take a right at the corner.Fiddling with the keys to the rental car and looking out onto the gray wilderness striated in white, I feel the remoteness of this place. It is why I am here. I want no part of this war in Ukraine, and yet I have traveled to this Arctic border to measure its long arm. How far north along Russia's border must one travel to get out of war's reach? But something else has brought me here—a 40-year-old romance with the country down the road. It began decades ago with pages marked and dog-eared, a sentence in a Tolstoy novel underlined, a short story by Chekhov that landed inside my life. Love of Russia's literature brought me to the Soviet Union, first as a student in the early 1970s, later as a professor. My romance with the country—snow falling on birches, a string quartet heard from an open window as I walked in winter twilight along Moscow streets—was challenged by the jagged edges of living with what you love. Which was to live in the thick of the long lines, the lack of just about everything, the aroma of KGB security, the cold concrete of daily life, the Great Soviet Experiment slowly going awry. The only thing not in deficit in those years was conversation—long, intimate, soulful, often laced with tea or vodka, as the country quietly pushed against its own closed doors.I drive into the gray quiet of a late Arctic morning, moving between road signs and my nostalgia for the gray Soviet past. I won't go back, not now, not during this war, not as long as the country with which I have had the 40-year-long love affair is ruled by the short man with the long arm, who was once a briefcase handler for upper echelon KGB spies in East Germany. But I will stand at the border and look over into Russia where memories lie deep. Maybe this is where I have always stood, somewhere on the border, even at those moments when I felt most a part of Russia's culture. Maybe I have just come to do what I have always done—stand at the edge of a country that after 40 years still eludes me.A road sign points me toward the border, another toward Murmansk, Russia, 225 km away. Families of reindeer on the road seem unperturbed by my car's presence. I dip down from cold hills into flatter land where after several miles a forest of signs appears, warning me not to proceed further. I pull over to get a closer look. In descending order in Norwegian, English, and Russian they read: No crossing the border by land, water, and air, no conversation across the border . . . no photographing Russian military personnel and equipment in an offending manner. . . . “What are you doing here? Your documents.” A tall Norwegian border guard in his late thirties appears out of nowhere, dressed in thick layers of uniform and belted with firearms. “You are not to be parking here. You are at Storskog Checkpoint. Out of the car.”I get out and reach into the back seat for my backpack and passport. My hands rustle and move too quickly, my signal to myself that I am anxious or nervous. I remember long ago taking the train into the Soviet Union from Finland. Soldiers in groups, the squeaking of boots up and down the corridor, all of it would begin miles before the actual border. We sat uneasy, waiting. The official eyes of official young men moved up and down my passport, braking hard on my face as if for a red light, and then down again as if I were someone else, and not me—their eyes intimidating, both of us afraid lest I be someone else, or no one at all, a ghost standing before them. Each time I arrived—a different, uniformed young man, the same eyes, all of them searching for what lay beneath my legal, documented self.The Norwegian guard stands quietly while I rummage. There. I hand him the passport. He sifts through the pages and hands it back. The moment is over.“What brings you here?”My nerves tell him I teach Russian literature, that I have lived in Russia, and that I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon, but that I want to see the border. I spit it all out in one breath.He smiles. “We have people like you. The other day a man from Singapore came. He had worked in Russia once. He came just to sit in his car and look even though he couldn't see Russia from here. He also knew he wasn't going back.”The two of us stand alone in the wind. No car, no truck, nothing passes.“Is the border completely closed?” I ask.“No, not at all. People with dual citizenship or with relatives on either side can come and go freely. Also, people are coming from Murmansk to shop for the day.”I tell him that's quite a trek for a shopping trip.“About a three-hour drive,” the guard tells me. “Longer in the winter.”“They come for different things. Better prices, tax breaks from Russian government. We see many cars returning to Russia with diapers. Probably because the quality is better here.” We smile, sharing an understanding.Moscow memories. I think it was 1982. Maybe January. Maybe five in the morning. Dark still, dark almost always, but from my window I could see the snow falling on the line of people below. They had been standing outside the Hungarian store since the night before, the line threading its way down the street, waiting out the dark. Men carrying faux leather briefcases standing with old women in angora hats, office workers, factory workers. Soviet society minus the peasantry stood under my window. Word of a delivery had come down, carving its own authority through the streets, the institutes, the kitchens of communal apartments, down hallways and out across the city into blocks of apartments standing precariously at the edge of town, into factories and metro stations, gathering momentum and organizing who would stand in line, who would cover at work, who would take the children to school, who would occupy the other lines that were forming that day, each promising an elusive treasure to be used, bartered, sold, or consumed. That day it was umbrellas from Hungary. Tomorrow, something else.“I don't know how much longer the border will be open,” the Norwegian guard tells me. “Everything is getting more difficult. New rules all the time. Things are tightening.”Is this part of Western sanctions hitting Russia, I wonder, or the same decades-old hunger for better quality Western goods that is bringing Russian shoppers across the border? My Hungarian store beneath my window in Moscow was just Western enough in the early 1980s to have good products, and just Eastern enough to be considered part of the Socialist brotherhood. Hence safe. Hence the lines.“You know I am going to have to write you up,” he almost for his I tell him I It will go something like this in his daily of Russian literature, to see border. me to go but if I want to the border, I take the road north along the for He to I that the Norwegian border are in and the Russian in red and he tells me as he back to his standing guard against a war 2,000 miles away. to the dark of an Arctic the town of Kirkenes the hard edges of the land out of which it that day, I town, signs in both and that to an Russian presence here. The town feels as if people enough to its I an open and into a from the a young at the a of men with and decades of and on the to a of Russian women in angora winter sit about the to into a and then by the I head back out into the Arctic wind. the to a a is in the and of the it in are the I drive up the to into my the inside of a window to the where I am someone has a of with the on It has been four since he was out in a remote in out a or the to in time for an to take the onto the that would day I the road north along a I hills and conifer into where and a in the the quiet of life. I pull over to take it all for the I out along an with and into the as I toward the by the hills through which it the into on its way north to the the of the the border between Russia and here. you have a to I on my to Russian on the or someone from a across two countries and a war, to a of My is the Russian I see no no sign of no of to be wilderness by rock in the in this or the my that I am not alone out I could out into this A a too and I am on that two years ago were It can like to the can get you in the Norwegian border guard had me. an I am not stand looking toward Murmansk, a city on the edge of as a of last before Russia I up on they have and and 225 km toward Norway to do The Murmansk I know the cold of the and in it like a ghost from a cold land to the for the in the far of the Soviet of the through the country to the the man with the in the on do you the on what out the and go on to the are not That of in the window with the on me that across this somewhere out in a in Russia, where he the Soviet has into the drive on and hills toward the a that with me. signs come into each in Norwegian, English, and eyes down the Norwegian and to the it was with a all its of a an It was the of official Moscow in the the in a under the of the of the of don't into don't don't don't don't the of this long and even in its short of the for a the Russian out over our A to get the the the of don't moved inside came to live with with to the with walked Moscow with all of it by by the of my a off the of a No or other crossing the you just don't you to take the across the border or take the all, just and an it to another sign men from in the of the Russian border at the the land, the and the from are along the I against a to myself against the and look out onto this gray sea. onto the border with How far north must I go to this the about the the man at the store in Kirkenes later that as he through a of I am for a back He up two and of of his he me a on his of a he had in while last of and out at me from the the Norwegian dressed in his the of his the and by the I the him much I him if he had the and tells me that he it a good he smiles. to be like take a and the and together. We come back the was more a but a quiet he tells me as he to through of even for taking a he the other side take it as an We the he tells the I get a he a line into the with it to the other don't are you going to the line or the take it where it a Norwegian The a Russian Maybe just a . . . My Russia last is all I that the window with the to is a and an my who the for us to will tell you is at night when to my I to has the of my the Russian the will be into my I into begin to in am tells me. want to to you in have a of and from away. The two of us into my and I the for the first time I take a look at as sifts through the of tea that the has is the of on the back into Russian and reach into the for and to on the the am not to at tells will be and The tea will us our way into each as it always in We head over onto the our against tell about the part of myself that Russia, that its literature and that has lived in Moscow and up here? far to see how much of the war has traveled I tell in my It was and all at once. I were you last years go tells me in the is just was going to at the in when all this are from I something on about on tells me moving back and between Russian and “You know about this It Russia and Russia get to military because of I was of and about Russian and me a story out of the and the under not even with a People for that under different they be they away to the they you in to the to my first of all and then someone The head of my I was by It felt like something someone had out of a of in the you know who I do you know who you I have an is all I was They me in and then on I had but I was of against the Russian for a I pull off a against the of was under with one of I in my and couldn't go We both knew what was going to It would be years for in one at the out to no They were all that they would into the same or of the at the at school, the who at the the someone that you them at the that the that the the man the not know people He I have been one of had no other I had to get knew what was when the bringing him back from landed in He knew he wasn't going to it out of the a tells me no of no was to get the off It was Russian and not tells almost as if the years dressed myself in and a all the way to the you get into I the layers of border a across the tells me in this war that is just a military no no border as I look over at this young from I smiles. to I time in and then I came to of the inside someone the to you on the moving all into the lines of the story no I no tells me only that was in those by people who came to know of I am had across to pull into has been a A down and then I if more It is all I can are they still in My have since I of them. I will be to hands reach out for tea is what you for the at the the after the the with to the to sit and the always always The the up of the of in the the taking of away. My own in standing guard over the The for long long in appears on the official of and is We to the to me the to that has in the of The to of and on a just from the Russian in and of look out onto A from only thing for the of is for good people to do is onto the and I stand in a cold the day to the the the of this land has brought the Russia has stands tall to the has and across the toward the Russian with a I and I am for story has been both and who have had the to are in the in in in by as he a over the Moscow just outside the with his in in in Moscow with a bag of in story is the reach of one arm, is a war tells me that the has been a of as has the car over the the the man who the car just it He it all the time for to is doing I I the I want to you out and me had as part of the is doing for a We both into my eyes from the and I the of a in at the more of from the I is and this me you something was on the of the in had been over at the Russian as they from all of us just to our against and to write something on the to through to on the the who they in a angora of I I am Russia is my my it the conversation inside of back, like a its own to what it to be to the land, to I sat and was off like a from a what was was Russia, and the thing called The of and not to the old men dressed in and who stood the Soviet but to the land and the a that nothing could the are still in they are here. from two different They go back and across the border. I I against this war, and I go back to my own country and my they are for this war, and for this you can on and out what is going on in this We have a that in and still, they for is my only that I have heard the for as many decades as has been miles from in Russia, up in a inside a my the has me the of into is old an into which the memories of war are deep. In Russian is as a a of of the during at the the city miles the the of day, cold the to the enough to them. A city into memories way to the day, sits in and to the military in at the at me in Russian over the miles something long to all of them. at the of our out of a years down over the decades into the “You will You would have to be Russian to You have lived here. You I have . . . won't me not as through what You are not You You war years the war that is to by its it is all the same war, all the same at the have I have had to take a and away. I last had by to a why many on the with people in I do not know if they for You can get in the of the Kirkenes town I in to out the as always, to get of in Norwegian and English, a with and tell me that one can sit out an Arctic in I head up to the a that as if it once have been a the far end of the I a of I into along the of of Russian The of old with the of dark Norwegian as I down the of and of a of short my are you write But from the after he that he would write down all that he had the out by then the In the early I sat in the in what had I his them back to my and through the me. I to winter inside a winter the the I would its Which was to live with The country that had me in of down on the first one of the with a an with a of the in on to are me in tell people who come are on the of Russian and as are about living in this They to have something to you order all you see I am to a Norwegian, I can go back and across the border I have dual a I go to It is my I lived and worked as a for many years I and moved tells me going back, the to other then I order the through I that I heard But of between Russia and those countries I New to in Russia through and the of a Russian them in with when to is our tells are on the of another of one about the one I want to but just live my and go on about my I don't myself with other tells and is me all I to miles down the road across a quiet are who am I in the eyes of this Russian in who for the in the eyes of for that who Russian about and his our our border by the a Russian is cars are a of in I several Norwegian up into the on the are over the and the don't like a man standing me in a leather to me as he his He in English, I am not from get off the no no no getting a the over They are the to be they are just to like an to I tell it is the too long out in our and don't know what they are who live to do a military up in a of they can do this is a are you doing he and with a air of old I tell The both of a out he with the of his out in a a or We Russian We an on each but also out for each tells me he is to Murmansk the day as part of the Norwegian to out to is on the part of the We still to on and People up to and the to We must on think that because is a war That is not how it is up here. are between even in the of They have both are he “We this He a and moved on toward the I sit with a a on my Russian shoppers outside the store at the edge of A has just into for on for No more cars with Russian must take across the border.A Russian the that will no longer be to the tea just want to live another Russian car with to take back to know and take a closer look at is old enough to old enough to have those same or more years enough to have The of which was to have own to Western products, to be to to live in a world The but out of reach during Soviet stood on my into the of car for the back into sit with a on the how walked out of a years Russian were that they were to own own apartments, own a Western products, and that wasn't just out of the you could No more of from It was a was only the one the to when he office in That was the it out long and back into a My in winter It is the end of miles to the the first of and are pushing way up through war's I am up my car to Kirkenes still on the the way to the airport, I the that is no longer Russian I the rental car in the parking and the just on a that nothing about my longer back into hard off the and sit looking out onto conifer that into the the in and out of the where with “We this the man down by the had me He its it can this war just like no end to up a of and from the car and head into the It is the man at the rental car and the bear with his at the baggage you see he me. I tell him I me if I am of going back again after the my I to