Thread: Refugees Choose Russia's Arctic as a Backdoor to Europe

A pile of bikes used by refugees to cross the Norway-Russia border at Storskog border station near Kirkenes in northern Norway, Oct. 13, 2015.


RUSSIAN/NORWEGIAN BORDER —
At the airport in the Russian Arctic city of Murmansk, passengers file out from the morning flight from Moscow — many seemingly dazed by the surroundings and clearly underdressed for the coming polar winter.

"We are all from hell," says passenger Tomasi, an Iranian from Tehran, when asked where he and others had arrived from.

Some are fleeing the violence of Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Others — joblessness and oppression elsewhere. All are part a cresting wave of refugees from the Middle East who have obtained Russian visas as a transit path to Norway.

As word of "the Arctic Route to Europe" has spread on social media, Norwegian officials increasingly express alarm over the influx of migrants who see Russia's remote border with Norway as a safer and cheaper alternative to leaky boats of human traffickers on the Mediterranean.

But the Russian journey has challenges, if smaller, of its own.

From Murmansk, migrants must first make their way some 136 miles north — past barren tundra, Russian military bases, and heavily armed checkpoints — to the small mining town of Nickel.


A view of the Russian mining town of Nickel, near the border with Norway.


There, refugees face a conundrum: Russian law bans foot traffic at the border and Norway fines drivers for carrying migrants across.

Enter the bicycle

The legal twist led to some creative thinking and has prompted a brisk trade in used bicycles throughout Russia's Northwest — any size or condition accepted.

Entreprenurial Russian smugglers have even arranged "package deals" of minivans and bicycles.

"We can't just give the bicycles away for free, right?" says Kirill, a Russian who arranges transport from Murmansk to the border.

"We help them so they don't get lost. So someone doesn't take advantage of them," he adds.

As the trickle of refugees has grown, a lone hotel in Nickel has become a key stopover before heading to the border.

On a recent evening, Syrians, Afghans, Egyptians, Palestinians, Iraqis, and other migrants pack into the hotel's 30 rooms for the night. Others were left to seek refuge in a nearby student dormitory. Outside, vans loaded with biycles waited to drop migrants at the border crossing.

"People here work together... the bus, the hotel, the taxi...they all work together," says Nabil, a Tunisian national who moved to St. Petersburg last year after terrorist attacks destroyed the Tunisian tourism industry.

Nabil says he paid 200 dollars for his bicycle. "$200 dollars! It's just a little bicycle! There's nothing but pedals."

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The last Lapp for some.

Norwegians are now becoming a minority in Norway!
LiveLeak.com - Norwegians are now becoming a minority in Norway!
1 day ago - It has already happened in the small town of Bolkesjø,Telemark. The 40 Native Norwegians living there are already outnumbered 4:1