A RUSSIAN TOWN IN NORWAY"
About a third of the company's 180 employees are Russian, 22 of whom work in the Russian port city of Murmansk.
Nikolai Chagin, a mechanic from the Russian town of Severodvinsk, has worked at the shipyard in Kirkenes since 2006.
"I don't have those problems I used to have in Russia before: I have a good job, a normal salary," he said.
About 10% of Kirkenes residents are now from the Kola Peninsula.
Kirkenes' Samovar theater company performs in both Norway and Russia, and has Russian and Norwegians employees. Russian choreographer Nikolai Shchetnev feels at home and is thinking of applying for dual nationality.
"Kirkenes is a Russian town in Norway," said Rune Rafaelsen, the mayor of Soer-Varanger municipality which includes Kirkenes.
He said he would not welcome more tanks on the border though he saw Norway's NATO membership as "a guarantee that I can do my job."
Russia denies responsibility for the rise in tensions. It blames the recent basing of U.S. Marines in Norway, which it sees as a security challenge.
But Norway's worries grew after Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and then staged Arctic military exercises including maritime maneuvers with ballistic missile-capable vessels present.
"These were clear messages from Moscow," said Lieutenant-General Rune Jakobsen, Commander of the Norwegian Joint Headquarters -- the Norwegian Armed Forces operational command center. "Do not be part of (NATO's) ballistic-missile defense."
Despite the tensions, he says Russian forces are behaving less aggressively on the frontier with Norway than in some other border zones between Russia and NATO, such as the Baltic Sea.
In efforts to build trust, Jakobsen has in recent weeks had talks with the regional head of Russia's FSB security service in the Kola Peninsula, and met the new head of the Northern Fleet, Alexander Moiseyev, in Kirkenes.
"As a small nation neighboring a superpower, you have to strike the right balance between deterrence and reassurance," Jakobsen said.
But the military exercises are also important for Norway.
"Working together is what makes it possible to fight together, if we have to," said Brigadier Lars Lervik, commander of the Northern Brigade based in Setermoen.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/norways-i...071203487.html
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