Of cour­se it had been my inten­ti­on for a while alre­a­dy to wri­te again here. But life in Farm­ham­na is main­ly hap­pe­ning off­line, and that is good.

And now the world isn’t any­mo­re what it used to be. The who­le popu­la­ti­on of Farm­ham­na (curr­ent­ly two peo­p­le) is deep­ly sho­cked about the news that reach us here. It would just feel com­ple­te­ly out of place to wri­te about the beau­ty of the natu­re here in the far north and about the simp­le, but good life in a remo­te trap­per sta­ti­on while the world is on fire.

It is about 40 kilo­me­t­res from Farm­ham­na to Barents­burg as the ful­mar flies. We can see the light of Barents­burg reflec­ted by low clouds in cer­tain wea­ther con­di­ti­ons. It is not far at all. Barents­burg is a Rus­si­an sett­le­ment, but with many Ukrai­ni­ans among­st its 300-400 inha­bi­tants. So far, Rus­si­ans and Ukrai­ni­ans were living the­re tog­e­ther peaceful­ly, also after the Rus­si­an occu­pa­ti­on of the Krim pen­in­su­la and the con­flict in the eas­tern Ukrai­ne sin­ce then. How do peo­p­le feel the­re now? How are they, with the know­ledge about the situa­ti­on in their respec­ti­ve home count­ries? Impos­si­ble to ima­gi­ne for me. Sys­sel­mes­ter Lars Fau­se is in regu­lar cont­act with Barents­burg, fol­lo­wing nor­mal rou­ti­nes, and says that it is a “good and nor­mal dia­lo­gue”, wit­hout going into fur­ther detail.

So I finish my con­tri­bu­ti­ons here for Febru­ary with the fol­lo­wing pic­tu­re, which is curr­ent­ly often shared in social media to express the hor­ror about the situa­ti­on, pro­test against the Rus­si­an inva­si­on and war in the Ukrai­ne and com­ple­te digust for tho­se who are respon­si­ble for it.

The Ukrai­ne

The dama­ge that occur­red to one of the two com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on cables that con­nect Spits­ber­gen to north Nor­way a few weeks ago attrac­ted a lot of public atten­ti­on (click here for more infor­ma­ti­on). The case is by no means sett­led, but the owner of the cable, Space Nor­way, and the respon­si­ble poli­ce agen­cy of Troms in north Nor­way have been in the area and were able to gather first data with an under­wa­ter robot.

Accor­ding to NRK, the poli­ce told Nor­we­gi­an media that human action appears to be likely as the cau­se for the dama­ge. Natu­ral influen­ces seem less likely now.

Making a pho­ne call in the sett­le­ments of Spits­ber­gen is done in a more modern fashion than pic­tu­red here. And it’s not just about pho­ne calls.
But almost ever­y­thing depends on the deep sea data cables to the main­land.

Not­hing was reve­a­led about the natu­re of the dama­ge or even pos­si­ble respon­si­ble peo­p­le or groups; it was only said that the­re are so far no suspects. It is also not yet publi­cal­ly know in which depth the dama­ge occur­red. The cable sec­tion in ques­ti­on is about 100 km long and leads from the rela­tively shal­low shelf on the west coast of Spits­ber­gen to deep sea are­as.

It is actual­ly not the 2 cm strong cable its­elf that is dama­ged but its power sup­p­ly.

Repair works are sche­du­led later this year, in spring and/or sum­mer.

Nor­way dis­con­ti­nues most coro­na rest­ric­tions as of today (1st of Febru­ary) 2300 hrs local time, accor­ding to a govern­men­tal press release.

This includes signi­fi­cant ease­ments within edu­ca­ti­on, cul­tu­re and gas­tro­no­my, but also for tra­vel­lers: inter­na­tio­nal tra­vel­lers do not need to get tes­ted at the bor­der direct­ly after arri­val any­mo­re. Ful­ly vac­ci­na­ted tra­vel­lers with an accept­ed vac­ci­na­ti­on cer­ti­fi­ca­te and reco­ver­ed peo­p­le with appro­pria­te docu­men­ta­ti­on may enter wit­hout test; tho­se who do not have this sta­tus need a test taken befo­re depar­tu­re. Ever­y­bo­dy inclu­ding Nor­we­gi­an citi­zens still need to regis­ter online befo­re arri­val.

coro­na test­ing sta­ti­on at Oslo air­port Gar­de­r­moen: here seen calm, but often very busy.
Soon it will most­ly be relia­bly calm here.
(addi­tio­nal deco­ra­ti­on digi­tal­ly added by the aut­hor).

For peo­p­le tra­vel­ling to Sval­bard, the requi­re­ment to get tes­ted in Nor­way within 24 hours befo­re depar­tu­re is dis­con­tin­ued for regis­tered lco­al inha­bi­tants as well as ful­ly vac­ci­na­ted tra­vel­lers and tho­se who have reco­ver­ed from a recent Covid-19 infec­tion (accept­ed docu­men­ta­ti­on nee­ded in any case). The requi­re­ment to car­ry out a self test within 24 hours after arri­val is still in force.

Ever­y­bo­dy is still asked to keep a distance of one meter or to wear a mask whe­re­ver it is not pos­si­ble to keep this distance.

The Nor­we­gi­an govern­ment plans to dis­con­ti­nue all coro­na rest­ric­tions until 17 Febru­ary unless new and curr­ent­ly unfo­re­seen deve­lo­p­ments requi­re a new chan­ge of plans.