Norway-Russia: an Arctic friendship under threat

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2015

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Norway, the sacking of a newspaper editor, allegedly after pressure from Russia, has caused a political storm over media freedom, and raised questions over what price the country should pay for good relations with its powerful eastern neighbour. Thomas Nilsen is a veteran environmental activist who edited a paper in the far north of Norway, in a region which has enjoyed a unique cross-border relationship with Russia. Now that’s threatened by rising tension between Russia and NATO. And relations have been further strained by the flow of refugees, now coming through Russia into the far north of Norway. Tim Whewell reports on what it means for the Norwegian outpost of Kirkenes, where Norwegians and Russians work closely together in the oil and fishing business and where cooperation and friendship go back decades.

Produced by John Murphy

(Photo: Norwegian Lion and a Russian Bear - A delicate Dance)

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is a BBC podcast.
0:02.0	You can get all our podcasts and our terms of use at BBCWorld Service.com slash podcasts.
0:08.0	I'm putting my hand now towards its mouth. There's a lot of the antennae waving around here.
0:18.6	I'm just touching its inner claws here. These are the inner claws on the edge of the mouth oh and they're
0:23.9	closing up yes I'm going to take my hand away fast.
0:26.7	And would you like to try the claw? Yes let's try the claw. Yeah but be
0:31.2	careful they are alive I know
0:33.0	can actually grab you that could actually take my finger off good yeah yeah yeah
0:36.7	they are enormously strong really oh yeah so that could break off my, I'm really...
0:43.0	Smash. Not cut, but smash and maybe even break.
0:47.0	Gosh.
0:48.0	Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service.
0:51.0	I'm Tim Hewell, in the far north of Norway, where hundreds of red
0:56.1	spiny king crabs, some more than a metre across, arriving in huge plastic crates on the key side.
1:03.2	If they don't escape, they'll be packed off to some of the smartest
1:07.1	restaurants in the world, in special conditions designed to ensure they arrive
1:11.8	still alive and kicking. And that depends on Russian expertise.
1:17.0	Well, I'm with Roman Vassiliev, he's head of research here at Norway, King Krab, a Russian scientist who's come to live here in Norway,
1:27.0	from Moscow. And this whole region, the far north of Norway, very close to the Russian border. It's a very special
1:34.4	region isn't it? Yeah, from my point of view it's quite special region. It's not
1:38.8	that easy to live here because of the climate, but at the same time we are neighbors I mean Russia and Norway and
1:45.5	we are in a very very warm relationships since really long ago. That special relationship is based on a web of cross-border
	...

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