Barentsburg (Russian: Баренцбург) is a mining town on the
Grønfjord in Nordenskiöld Land on Svalbard, with about 435
inhabitants (2011), almost exclusively Russians (~ 10%) and
Ukrainians (~ 90%). The population has declined steadily since the
peak in the 1970s when there were about 1,000 inhabitants in the
settlement. Barentsburg is located about 40 kilometers southwest of
Longyearbyen as the crow flies, and can be reached either by
snowmobile in winter or by boat during the ice-free period. The
place can also be reached by scheduled helicopter, and there is a
small landing site at Heerodden just outside the city.
Barentsburg is located on a slope below Olavsvarden, a straight
ridge that runs straight north from Grønfjordfjellet (547 masl) and
forms an eastern ridge that sets the boundaries of the settlement.
The small Gladbekken forms Gladdalen which cuts into Olavsvarde
hill, and Gladdalen has a low-lying direct transition northwards in
Zachariassendalen which is formed by Olavbekken and empties straight
north into Hollendarbukta east of Heerodden. Barentsburg is built on
a straight south-northern axis along the Grønfjord from Heerodden in
the north to Finneset in the south. Barentsburg has a coal mine,
school, museum, helicopter site, coal power plant, hospital,
research park and harbor.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Grønfjord was used
extensively as an anchoring and hunting ground for whaling, and in
the second half of the period also by Russian Pomor hunting teams. A
house was erected in 1825 in "Green Harbor", which occasionally
names Finneset and occasionally present-day Barentsburg. Norwegian
whaling companies took a short time interest in the Grønfjord at the
beginning of the 20th century, and had both land stations here and
in Kokerihamna on the other side of the fjord. The whaling company
Spitsbergen av Tønsberg set up a large whale facility on Finneset
which was in operation from 1905 to 1912, the last four years owned
by the Sandefjord-based whaling company Nimrod.
Coal was
discovered here at about the same time. In 1899, Kulkompaniet
Isefjord Spitsbergen was formed in Kristiania by the Tromsø skipper
Andreas Schrøder, and in July 1900 the company set up a building for
exploration and sharpening for coal out at Heerodden. Fredrik Hiort
and Christian Anker also formed various companies that annexed the
coal fields around Barentsburg in 1908. The large Norwegian
Spitsbergen coal company also owned sharps and targets in the area
from 1916, but has never had coal mining here. The company A / S
Stavanger Spitsbergen expanded Heerodden from 1912, without much
success.
In 1915, both previously Stavanger-occupied fields
in Hollendarbukta, and coal fields at Kapp Heer - Barentsburg were
collected on A / S De Russiske Kulfelter Green Harbor, where M.
Lewin was a member. In 1917, M. Lewin & Co expanded some facilities
and buildings both on Heerodden and in the eastern course of
Gladdalen in today's Barentsburg.
From 1920, Dutch
stakeholders had the majority shareholding in A / S Isefjord
Kulkompani, and in 1921 De Russiske Kulfelter sold all its sharps
and targets in Grønfjorden to NV Nederlandsche Spitsbergen
Compagnie, which established the town of Barentsburg and invested a
lot of capital in facilities and buildings. As early as 1926,
however, Nederlandsche Spitsbergen encountered serious financial
problems, and stopped coal mining on the site. At about the same
time, the Russian Coal Fields also sold their targets east of the
Gulf of Coles, but in 1932, both this and all fields and sharps from
Barentsburg in the west to Grumantbyen in the east were taken over
by the Soviet state-owned company Arktikugol.
During World
War II, Barentsburg was evacuated during German attacks from the
sea, and the city was heavily bombed. The Russian mine owners set
fire to the mine, and the fire was not extinguished until after the
end of the war. In the final phase of the war, a Norwegian cannon
battery was out on Heerodden.
Arktikugol has launched plans
to reopen the mines in Grumantbyen, but in 2012 was rejected an
application to the Governor to build a road between Barentsburg and
Colesdalen.