Governor gives high priority to monitoring Russia’s Svalbard voyages

Sysselmesteren (the Governor of Svalbard), Lars Fause, said his office knows about the coming Russian port calls and is ready for them. Checks will be routine and done together with Customs: passengers' identity papers will be examined, and so will the goods taken ashore. Fause said the task has high priority and will get the resources it needs.

The checks relate to ten voyages this year that let Russian citizens reach the Norwegian archipelago without a visa. The research vessel Professor Molchanov made the first of them. It was due to leave Murmansk on 4 March, but poor weather in the Barents Sea held it back until the early hours of 8 March, according to its AIS tracking data. The crossing normally lasts two to three days. Sailing from Murmansk spares Russian travellers the flight through Oslo or Tromsø, where a Norwegian visa is required.

Barentsburg lies roughly 55 km from Longyearbyen, has about 300 residents and is inhabited almost wholly by Russian nationals. No road links the two places, so the Governor's staff go by boat, helicopter or snowmobile. Ten arrivals in 2026 will demand considerable resources for oversight.

Marta Govor, the Murmansk Region's Minister of Tourism and Entrepreneurship, told regional state television that the route opens new possibilities for Arctic tourism. No tourists were aboard this first sailing, though. Trust Arktikugol (Russia's state-owned company on Svalbard) said on VKontakte that it carried its Svalbard employees and their families, plus food and technical supplies. Arktikugol said tourists will come on a second voyage in April. The Russian firm Morskaya Praktika co-organises the sailings, and its owner has links to military structures in the Northern Fleet. A former head of Arktikugol's tourism branch, now in exile in Norway, has doubted the route can pay its way. He noted the vessel is 43 years old and was not built for Arctic passengers.

Coal has long underpinned Russia's presence on Svalbard, but output is falling. About 80,000 tonnes are mined yearly, and roughly half goes to the power plant supplying Barentsburg. Izvestia reported earlier this week that Russia aims for 50,000 tourists a year by 2040.