Reported by Al Jazeera
As Russia’s war in Ukraine reshapes this Arctic frontier, Sámi communities struggle to sustain cross-border traditions.
Along the shores of the Neiden Fjord, in Norway’s northernmost county Finnmark, Nils Boine* gazes out across the water. On the horizon, the Neiden River splits around the craggy island of Skogerøya, but lurking beneath its surface is a fisherman’s bounty: hundreds of king crabs.
His grandmother was Sea Sámi, from an Indigenous coastal people whose homeland, Sápmi, stretches across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s heavily militarised Kola Peninsula. In Finnmark’s fjords, Sea Sámi families have fished for generations. But these waters are dissected by more than currents and shoals. Since Norway and Russia fixed their border in 1826, Sámi communities in the region have been divided by a national boundary.
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Two hundred years later, this Arctic community is a combination of Sámi, Norwegians, Finns, Ukrainians, Russians, and international seasonal workers. Most of the Sámi population lives in Norway, with roughly 2 percent residing in Russia.
The Sámi have established a cross-border lifestyle, supported by flexible policies, including a Norwegian-Russian agreement allowing visa-free travel for those living within 30km (18.5 miles) of the border.
Security, however, has begun to tighten since the onset of Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine. The West sees Finnmark as part of NATO’s exposed northern flank, as it is directly opposite Russia’s heavily armed Kola Peninsula. The Norwegian border town of Kirkenes has been caught in a spy war with Russia, with multiple Russian operatives having been caught posing as tourists and fishermen while trying to engage in espionage.
Now, border bureaucracy is a daily reality, and reindeer herding, language revitalisation and hunting traditions are increasingly being navigated through permits and regulations, making the wider Arctic infrastructure feel fractured.
“I have friends in Russia,” Boine says. “We used to go shopping in Russia, and go there for weekends.”
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, those crossings have stopped — partly as a display of solidarity with Ukraine, and partly due to safety concerns.
“A local person was just arrested in Russia, so people…