“East meets West” only because the city is a few short miles from the Russian Border.

In the summer of 2019, I drove from Tromso to Kirkenses which is located 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. The views of the long drive were spectacular and will share pictures in additional blog posts in the coming days. I have always wanted to visit Kirkenes since I took a Hurtigruten cruise from Kristiansund in 2015. I knew the boat eventually ended in Kirkenes and heard so much about the town. Kirkenes is located in the extreme northeastern part of Norway on the Bøkfjord, a branch of the Varangerfjord, near the Russian border. Most of the approximately 7,000 inhabitants are of Norwegian background, while a minority is Sami.  I was in Kirkenses for a day and the photos below illustrate what the people endured during WW11. Early in WWII the Nazis coveted its resources and strategic position near the Russian port of Murmansk, occupied the town and posted 100,000 troops there. As a result, tiny Kirkenes was, after Malta, the most bombed place during WWII, with at least 320 devastating Soviet raids. The retreating Nazis burned what was left of Kirkenes, before advancing Soviet troops liberated its ruins in October 1944.