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Rybachi Peninsula open after 70 years

"Two brothers" rock formation on Rybachi Peninsula (Photo Globant.narod.ru)

The earlier strictly closed military area Rybachi Peninsula on Russia’s coast of the Barents Sea is now open for Russian and foreign tourists.

Location

The northernmost point of the European part of the Russian mainland has since the Second World War been a strictly closed and heavy militarized border zone, but Russian authorities have recently opened the Rybachi Peninsula for Russian and foreign tourists, NRK.no reports.

Murmansk Shipping Company has already started to offer excursions to the Rybachi peninsula, web site B-port.com reports. The company has with own means repaired the road from the check point in Titovka to the village of Ozerko on the peninsula. It is now possible to get to the peninsula by car, although off-road vehicles are recommended.

Before the Second World War a colony of Norwegian emigrants, so-called Kola Norwegians, lived on the peninsula. During the war the Norwegians and other civilians were evacuated from the area.

In October 2009 The Norwegian Border Commissioner for the Norwegian-Russian border Colonel Ivar Magne Sakserud was invited to visit the peninsula by his Russian counterpart, Colonel Vladmir Bobrov.

The Rybachi Peninsula is still used as training fields for Russia’s Northern Fleet’s naval infantry, like in the exercise “Zapad-2009”, as BarentsObserver reported.

See pictures here from a trip made to the area by a group of Russians in 2009.