History

Kirkenes is the capital of the municipality of Sør-Varanger. The municipality is located as far north-east as possible in Norway, close to the Varanger fjord. We belong to the northernmost country in Norway, Finnmark. Kirkenes is located 70 degrees north and 30 degrees east.

The municipality has approximately 9800 inhabitants spread over a territory of 3.670 km2. The municipality borders both to Russia and Finland. This gives the municipality a central location seen in a commercial aspect. We are in the center in the Barentsregion, with ice free ports and all year round access to the Barents sea. Because of our unique location, many local companies have turned their attention towards the markets in Northwest-Russia. However, service is the largest and most important commercial aspect of our municipality, especially since AS Sydvaranger closed down their iron ore activities in 1996.

Kirkenes and Sør-Varanger is for you who seek contrasts.

Here you will find it all: from the indigenous traditional way of living to a modern industrial society all in one generation. Remnants from the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Winter-war between Russia and Finland in 1939, the history of 320 bombing raids and total destruction during World War 2 and of course 30 years of cold political war. Follow the changes up to nowadays modern society, where we slowly are building relations regardless of country. In the regions of Europe there are exiting things happening, especially in the Barentsregion. Here Kirkenes has a central position.

As a visitor to Kirkenes, you will feel the strange puls.

Make contact, and we will let you have some tastes of the history of Europe.

It’s different here with us.

We welcome you to a different experience!

Nature

The nature in our municipality is different from the rest of Norway. The plant “Polarfjellflokk” (Jacob’s Ladder) only grows on Bugøynes, and nowhere else on the Norwegian mainland. There are many eastern plant-species growing in the municipality that are rear or non existent in other parts of Norway. Other examples are “Brannmyrull” and “Finnmarkspors”. The forest in Pasvik originates from the Siberian taiga; the worlds largest continuous forest area. You will find all the major predators in the municipality. Best known is the brown bear, and the Pasvik Valley is home for around 20 individuals. This is the highest density of bears in the entire Norway. We are also the home of glutton (wolverine) and lynx. If you are very lucky you might get the rare chance of seeing wolves, but these are only stray animals coming from Russia. However, your chances are much higher of seeing reindeer and elk, than running into one of the great predators.

Similar to the flora, the fauna has many eastern elements, especially among the bird species.

Other animals that have migrated from the east are the muskrat, the mighty Kamchatka crab (king crab) and the Russian Salmon.

Climate

The municipality of Sør-Varanger is one of Norway’s driest areas when it comes to rainfall. The climate in our huge municipality changes noticeably from the far south of the Pasvik Valley to the far east of Grense-Jakobselv. The Pasvik Valley has a typical inland climate with little rainfall, short warm summers and long cold winters. By the coast we would of course have coastal climate, with more rainfall but with less temperature swings than the inland areas when it comes to winter and summer.

One February morning there was a record measurement of -52 C (-61 Fahrenheit) in the Pasvik Valley, this same station measured the record +32 C (89.6 Fahrenheit) during the summer.

Average temperature in Kirkenes:
jan -13 C, april: -1 C, june +8 C, july +14 C, august +11 C, des -11 C

The Midnight sun is visible from the 17^th of May till the 21^st of July.
The dark period (the sun is below the horizon) is from 21^st of November till the 21^st of January.

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