Norway–Russia border

Older than both countries

The Varangerfjord has long marked the eastern edge of Norwegian and Swedish influence in the far north. The first agreement on a boundary here dates from the early 1300s, and it named the Varangerfjord as the line.^[1] By the 18th century the Murman coast to the east was held in common by Russia, Sweden and Norway as a Sami (then called Lapp) district.^[1]

After Sweden ceded Finland to Russia in 1809, a new boundary was needed. It was surveyed in 1810 and 1824 and written into the St. Petersburg Convention between Russia and Sweden, signed on 14 May 1826.^[1] That convention set the line along the Pasvik and Jakobselv rivers, and it still forms the basis of the border today.^[1]

Since then the same line has divided different pairs of states: Russia and Sweden until 1905, Norway and Russia from 1905 to 1918, Finland and Norway from 1918 to 1944, and Norway and the Soviet Union after that.^[1]

Two rivers and Boris Gleb

The US Geographer measured the boundary in 1978 at about 196 km, of which 153 km follows the two rivers. The rest is straight lines marked by pillars.^[1] The land around it is a glaciated upland full of lakes, with tundra and stunted birch in the north and pine, larch and spruce forest in the Pasvik valley.^[1]

From the Finnish tripoint at Krokfjell, the line runs about four miles southeast across the Pasvik, so Norway holds both banks for a short way. It then turns northeast and follows the river's thalweg, its deepest channel. Islands go to Norway or Russia depending on which side of the thalweg they lie.^[1]

Then comes Boris Gleb. Russian Orthodox missions were set up at Pechenga and Boris Gleb in the 16th century, and the 1826 treaty gave Boris Gleb to Russia.^[1] The result is a 3.6 square km pocket of Russian land on the Norwegian side of the river, which gives Russia both banks for 2.6 km below the falls at Skoltefoss.^[1] Past it, the line runs southeast and then east in straight lines across lakes and marshes to the Jakobselv, then follows that river's thalweg to the sea.^[1]

The Pasvik is dammed for hydropower. A 1957 agreement governs the use of its water power, and a 1963 protocol let each country use small plots on the other's side to run its dams: 1.01 hectares in Norway for the Soviet station at Boris Gleb, and two sites in the Soviet Union for Norway's Skogfoss station.^[1]

Finland in between

When Finland became independent, the 1920 Treaty of Dorpat gave it Petsamo (Pechenga). The treaty said the old frontier between Russia and Norway would be Petsamo's northwestern boundary, so Norway's eastern neighbour became Finland.^[1] A Norway–Finland convention of 1924 kept the line as it had been demarcated in 1896.^[1]

Finland lost Petsamo in the Moscow Armistice of 19 September 1944, confirmed by the Paris peace treaty of 1947, and the line became the Norway–Soviet border again.^[1] A joint Soviet–Norwegian commission then re-marked it with 415 pillars. Its final protocol, signed in Moscow on 18 December 1947, changed little from 1826. The main change was that the rivers now split along the thalweg instead of the “median line of the channel”.^[1]

“From cairn No. 362, the frontier shall follow the course of the Jakobselv as far as its mouth, running throughout along the median line of the channel and down the center of the lakes formed by the river.”^[1]

Out to sea

Offshore, the two countries argued for nearly four decades. Norway wanted a median line between the two coasts. Russia wanted a sector line running due north along 32° 04′ 35″ E. The area between the claims covered about 155,000 square km of the Barents Sea and 20,000 square km of the Arctic Ocean.^[5] A 1978 “grey zone” agreement managed fishing in part of it while talks went on.^[5]

On 15 September 2010 the foreign ministers, Jonas Gahr Støre and Sergei Lavrov, signed a treaty in Murmansk that split the disputed area nearly in half.^[3][5] Its line starts from the end of an earlier 2007 agreement for the Varangerfjord and runs north past 84° N.^[2] It entered into force on 7 July 2011.^[3] In July 2022 a Duma deputy accused Norway of blocking food supplies to Russian settlements on Svalbard, and Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin asked for scrapping the treaty to be looked into.^[3]

One way through

There is only one crossing: Storskog on the Norwegian side and Borisoglebsky on the Russian side, about 10 miles from Kirkenes. The rivers and forests along the rest of the line help explain why.^[4]

In 2015 Storskog became an unexpected route into Europe. Crossing on foot was banned, and taxi drivers said they risked fines for people smuggling if they drove people over, so many asylum seekers rode the last stretch on bicycles.^[6][7] In all, 5,464 asylum seekers arrived at Storskog that year, many from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Arrivals stopped on 30 November 2015.^[6]

From September 2022 Storskog was the only land border open to Russian tourists and shoppers entering Schengen Europe. Norway closed it to them from 29 May 2024, keeping exceptions for close family, work and study.^[8]