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| Ukrainians Find Jobs and a Slice of Russia in Arctic Norway | Ukrainians Find Jobs and a Slice of Russia in Arctic Norway |
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| BARENTSBURG, Norway — While scientists up here in the high Arctic monitor global warming by studying the movement of polar bears, ice floes and glaciers, Nikolai Mikitenko tracks the meltdown in Ukraine, the land of his birth more than 2,000 miles away, through the migration of desperate coal miners. | BARENTSBURG, Norway — While scientists up here in the high Arctic monitor global warming by studying the movement of polar bears, ice floes and glaciers, Nikolai Mikitenko tracks the meltdown in Ukraine, the land of his birth more than 2,000 miles away, through the migration of desperate coal miners. |
| As the director of the Arctic Coal Trust, a state-owned Russian company that has mined in this frigid Norwegian-controlled wilderness since the 1930s, Mr. Mikitenko needs workers who are willing to move to an ice-entombed island with no trees and, for six months of the year, no sunlight. | As the director of the Arctic Coal Trust, a state-owned Russian company that has mined in this frigid Norwegian-controlled wilderness since the 1930s, Mr. Mikitenko needs workers who are willing to move to an ice-entombed island with no trees and, for six months of the year, no sunlight. |
| It does not help that the place, about halfway between the Russian port of Murmansk and the North Pole, has a fearsome reputation for danger, at least for miners. A Russian plane carrying coal miners to jobs here in Barentsburg crashed into a mountain in 1996, killing all 141 people on board. | It does not help that the place, about halfway between the Russian port of Murmansk and the North Pole, has a fearsome reputation for danger, at least for miners. A Russian plane carrying coal miners to jobs here in Barentsburg crashed into a mountain in 1996, killing all 141 people on board. |
| A year later, more than 20 miners died in a mine explosion. Since then, at least four Russian helicopters, used to ferry coal company staff members to areas otherwise accessible only by snowmobile, have crashed. | A year later, more than 20 miners died in a mine explosion. Since then, at least four Russian helicopters, used to ferry coal company staff members to areas otherwise accessible only by snowmobile, have crashed. |
| Ukraine’s economic ruin and political tumult, however, have ensured that Mr. Mikitenko never has a shortage of labor, creating a deep pool of miners hungry for work, no matter where. | Ukraine’s economic ruin and political tumult, however, have ensured that Mr. Mikitenko never has a shortage of labor, creating a deep pool of miners hungry for work, no matter where. |
| “There is a long line of people who want to work here,” he said, waving a list of new recruits, all of them from Ukraine. “If they could find jobs at home and feed their families, do you think they would come to this place?” | “There is a long line of people who want to work here,” he said, waving a list of new recruits, all of them from Ukraine. “If they could find jobs at home and feed their families, do you think they would come to this place?” |
| Of the 400 miners, technicians and support staff members now working for the Arctic Coal Trust on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, more than 300 come from Ukraine. Nearly all are from Donetsk and Luhansk, the eastern Ukrainian regions that have been convulsed in recent months by violent unrest. | Of the 400 miners, technicians and support staff members now working for the Arctic Coal Trust on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen, more than 300 come from Ukraine. Nearly all are from Donetsk and Luhansk, the eastern Ukrainian regions that have been convulsed in recent months by violent unrest. |
| Salaries paid in Russian rubles and worth about $1,000 a month — at least three times the going rate for a miner in Ukraine — are a big draw, but, Mr. Mikitenko noted, few Russians are tempted. “They have a choice,” he said, and they can find work nearer to home in Russia. | |
| The readiness of so many Ukrainians from the country’s Russian-speaking east to move to the Arctic, he said, is a clear sign that the root cause of Ukraine’s current troubles is economic misery, not meddling by the Kremlin or agitation by local hotheads with guns. | The readiness of so many Ukrainians from the country’s Russian-speaking east to move to the Arctic, he said, is a clear sign that the root cause of Ukraine’s current troubles is economic misery, not meddling by the Kremlin or agitation by local hotheads with guns. |
| For Russian-speaking Ukrainians who mourn the 1991 demise of the Soviet Union, an event that thrust them into a new country few wanted or felt any attachment to, the Russian coal mining settlement here offers a comforting blast from the past. Lenin watches over the town from a pedestal piled with snow, and a big concrete sign outside the mine canteen proclaims the town’s original and, in some ways, still intact purpose: “Our Goal Is Communism.” | |
| Mikhail Golovonov, a 33-year-old miner from Luhansk, said he was too young to remember much about the Soviet Union but regrets nonetheless that it fell apart and made him a citizen of Ukraine. He said he would prefer to be Russian. | |
| Life in the Arctic, he said, “is very boring and cold” but still more comfortable and secure than in Luhansk, where he had trouble finding a place to live because he did not earn enough to buy an apartment. He now lives with his wife and young son in subsidized company housing and saves nearly all his salary, as there is nothing much to buy. The only store is a company-run commissary stocked with canned food from Russia. | Life in the Arctic, he said, “is very boring and cold” but still more comfortable and secure than in Luhansk, where he had trouble finding a place to live because he did not earn enough to buy an apartment. He now lives with his wife and young son in subsidized company housing and saves nearly all his salary, as there is nothing much to buy. The only store is a company-run commissary stocked with canned food from Russia. |
| Housing, electricity and other utilities are all heavily subsidized by Moscow, which loses money from the Arctic Coal Trust but keeps it afloat to preserve Russia’s presence on Spitsbergen, the biggest island on a strategically located archipelago known as Svalbard. | Housing, electricity and other utilities are all heavily subsidized by Moscow, which loses money from the Arctic Coal Trust but keeps it afloat to preserve Russia’s presence on Spitsbergen, the biggest island on a strategically located archipelago known as Svalbard. |
| Russian subsidies have also paid for the construction of a modern sports complex with a swimming pool, the lavish renovation of Soviet-era apartment blocks and the world’s only brewery in the high Arctic, which produces a brew called Red Bear for the mine canteen. Though formally part of Norway, television channels here broadcast only Russian programming. | Russian subsidies have also paid for the construction of a modern sports complex with a swimming pool, the lavish renovation of Soviet-era apartment blocks and the world’s only brewery in the high Arctic, which produces a brew called Red Bear for the mine canteen. Though formally part of Norway, television channels here broadcast only Russian programming. |
| A capsule of Soviet life frozen in time, the Arctic Coal Trust has also preserved the ethnic hierarchies of the Soviet era. If most of the miners are Ukrainians, the management is top-heavy with Russians. Unskilled work like clearing snow and demolishing buildings is handled by laborers from Armenia and Tajikistan. | |
| A small school for miners’ children follows the Russian curriculum and teaches the pupils, nearly all Ukrainians, about the language and culture of Russia, a country most have never visited but still feel part of. A teaching aid hanging on the classroom wall spells out with big letters words essential for life in Russia but utterly useless in the Arctic: Moscow, birch tree, cow and rooster. | A small school for miners’ children follows the Russian curriculum and teaches the pupils, nearly all Ukrainians, about the language and culture of Russia, a country most have never visited but still feel part of. A teaching aid hanging on the classroom wall spells out with big letters words essential for life in Russia but utterly useless in the Arctic: Moscow, birch tree, cow and rooster. |
| Irina Kara, the teacher, who comes from Luhansk, said she enjoyed her work and was not too bothered by the absence of sunlight in winter or the summer months, when it never gets dark. But she admits to worrying constantly about her two children and other family back in eastern Ukraine. “This place is the end of the world,” she said. “But the pay is good.” | Irina Kara, the teacher, who comes from Luhansk, said she enjoyed her work and was not too bothered by the absence of sunlight in winter or the summer months, when it never gets dark. But she admits to worrying constantly about her two children and other family back in eastern Ukraine. “This place is the end of the world,” she said. “But the pay is good.” |
| Though reluctant to give up its strategic foothold in the high Arctic, Moscow has been trying for years to cut the cost of running what has in effect become a state-funded work program for penniless Ukrainians. The loss-making Arctic Coal Trust has steadily reduced its operations since the end of the Soviet Union, when it employed more than 4,000 people, 10 times what it has now. | |
| Under pressure to pay its own way and rely less on handouts from Moscow, the company is now pushing to develop Barentsburg as a tourist destination, a hard go as its main selling point, aside from a stunning setting on a mountain-fringed fjord, is its authentic Soviet griminess. It is also hard to get to. There are no roads connecting it to Spitsbergen’s only airport, which is reachable only by snowmobile or boat. | Under pressure to pay its own way and rely less on handouts from Moscow, the company is now pushing to develop Barentsburg as a tourist destination, a hard go as its main selling point, aside from a stunning setting on a mountain-fringed fjord, is its authentic Soviet griminess. It is also hard to get to. There are no roads connecting it to Spitsbergen’s only airport, which is reachable only by snowmobile or boat. |
| Undeterred, the mining company has opened a souvenir shop and a luxury hotel to replace a rundown guesthouse. The four-story hotel had no paying guests on a recent day, only a few lodgers from the coal company. | Undeterred, the mining company has opened a souvenir shop and a luxury hotel to replace a rundown guesthouse. The four-story hotel had no paying guests on a recent day, only a few lodgers from the coal company. |
| A tough veteran of Soviet mines in the Siberian region of Yakutia, Mr. Mikitenko, Arctic Coal’s director, played down the obstacles in the way of tourism in a place where, even in June, it snows. Compared with winter, when it is dark constantly and temperatures regularly sink below minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, “this is T-shirt weather,” he said. | A tough veteran of Soviet mines in the Siberian region of Yakutia, Mr. Mikitenko, Arctic Coal’s director, played down the obstacles in the way of tourism in a place where, even in June, it snows. Compared with winter, when it is dark constantly and temperatures regularly sink below minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, “this is T-shirt weather,” he said. |