Svalbard research conference opens in Murmansk

A Russian scientific conference on Svalbard opened in Murmansk on Tuesday 10 November, the Murmansk branch of Russia's state broadcaster, GTRK Murman, reported. It runs until Thursday 12 November.

The organiser is the Murmansk Marine Biological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Its announcement names the meeting the XVII International Scientific Conference "Integrated Studies of Spitsbergen Nature and Adjacent Shelf 2026". Spitsbergen is the institute's name for the whole of Svalbard.

The conference marks 10 years of the Russian Scientific Center on the archipelago, the institute said. It also marks 95 years of Arktikugol, the Russian state coal company in Barentsburg. The partners the institute lists include Russia's Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the government of Murmansk region, the Consulate General of Russia on Svalbard and Arktikugol.

About 50 specialists from Moscow, St Petersburg and countries outside the former Soviet Union went to Murmansk, GTRK Murman reported. The programme has talks on ecosystems, climate change, glaciology, biomedical research and the history of the Russian presence on Svalbard.

The conference has been held since 2001, the Murmansk outlet Arktik-TV reported. Its book of abstracts holds 48 abstracts by 130 authors from 40 organisations.

The conference is in the plan for Russia's strategy for its presence on Svalbard until 2030, the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences said in a notice.

Olga Yumatova is deputy minister of Arctic development and economy of Murmansk region. She said that this was not only an investment in Russian science but also an important part of supporting the Russian presence on the archipelago.

The specialists who went to Murmansk were interested in joint projects, GTRK Murman reported. Anand Kamavisdar, counsellor for science and technology at India's embassy in Moscow, said that he had visited Murmansk Arctic University. Work was under way on a concept for cooperation between universities, he said. A programme existed between Russia and India, and a joint project might follow if the sides agreed, he said.

Copies of Pomor objects

A travelling exhibition of copies of Pomor objects found on Svalbard opened on Tuesday in the lobby of the Regional Management Centre in Murmansk. Pomors were Russians who sailed to Svalbard for several centuries, wintered there and hunted, Natalya Chalaya told the Murmansk news site SeverPost. She is a junior researcher at the Institute of Archaeology.

The copies are shown outside the archipelago for the first time, Arktik-TV reported. The originals come from Pomor hunting stations of the 17th to 19th centuries.

The exhibition was to show 15 copies, the archaeology institute said in its notice. The originals are in the Pomor museum in Barentsburg, a Russian settlement on Svalbard. Under Norwegian law, archaeological objects cannot leave the archipelago, the notice said.

Section 46 of the Svalbard Environmental Protection Act bans taking protected cultural heritage found on Svalbard out of the archipelago. Movable objects from before 1946 are protected once they are found. The act has two exceptions. Regulations may decide that finds are kept outside Svalbard permanently or for a time, and the directorate may permit export in special cases.

The Institute of Archaeology's Svalbard expedition built digital models from photographs of the objects and printed them, and artists painted the prints by hand.

Among the copies are a carved cross, a patterned knife handle and dishes with their owners' initials. A three-sided wooden stick carries an alphabet on all three sides. The archaeologists called it the Pomor alphabet, Chalaya said. Its purpose was not known for certain, and it might have been used to teach a young member of a Pomor family, she said.

The exhibition also shows a reconstruction of the face of a Pomor buried at Ebeltofthamna. Waves had partly washed out the grave, which the archaeologists found in 2025. They photographed the skull without disturbing the burial, the archaeology institute said.

Coverage: SeverPost, GTRK Murman, Arktik-TV, TV21, Xn----7sbhwjb3brd