Where to Stay in Kirkenes, Finnmark

Kirkenes is the eastern end of Norway, the port and frontier town of Sør-Varanger close to the Russian border. War and the border marked it, and the Frigjøringsmonumentet recalls the liberation that followed the hardest years of the last century, while the Krigsmødremonumentet remembers the women who held the town through them. Kirkenes kirke stands at the centre.

The art of the Sami painter at the Saviomuseet draws visitors to this far south-eastern part of Finnmark, the last harbour before the frontier in northern Norway.

Kirkenes kirke stands at the centre, the church rebuilt over the port town. War left its marks. The Frigjøringsmonumentet recalls the liberation, the Krigsmødremonumentet honours the women of the war years, and the Saviomuseet holds the work of the Sami painter born in the district.

This town keeps its history close. Together the Varanger museum and the Sør-Varanger Museum gather the story of the frontier and the people of this south-eastern part of Finnmark on the road to the Russian border.

Kirkenes grew as the frontier port of Sør-Varanger, chartered in the 19th century on the eastern edge of the country near the Russian border. Mining and the sea built it: ore from the inland fields came down to the quays, and the harbour shipped it out along the coast through the long northern seasons. The last war scarred the town.

Kirkenes was bombed and burned in those years, and the Frigjøringsmonumentet and the Krigsmødremonumentet were raised afterward to mark the liberation and the women who endured the worst of it. The town rebuilt and held its place. Kirkenes kirke rose again over the centre, and the work of the Sami painter of the district was gathered into the Saviomuseet, while the Varanger museum and the Sør-Varanger Museum kept the longer story of the frontier.

It stayed the east's gateway. The town became the chief place of Sør-Varanger, the port and crossing of this south-eastern part of Finnmark on the far edge of northern Norway.

Kirkenes lies on a fjord arm of the Barents coast, in the south-eastern part of Finnmark close to the Russian border. The town gathers around the harbour and Kirkenes kirke, the streets rising from the water toward the tundra and the inland fields. Boats work the fjord.

The municipality of Sør-Varanger spreads east and south over wide treeless country and lakes toward the frontier, taking in the harbour town and the scattered settlements of this far corner of northern Norway.

Kirkenes has a cold, dry subarctic climate near the Russian border on the Barents coast. Winters run long and hard, the polar night holding the port town in months of darkness while frost grips the tundra of the south-eastern part of Finnmark and the fjord ice locks the inner water. Summers turn short and mild.

The midnight sun rides over the harbour and the lakes for weeks together, the brief warmth waking the low country before the dark returns to Kirkenes and the frontier of northern Norway.

Kirkenes lies off the rail network, reached by air, road and sea near the Russian border. The airport links the port town to the rest of the country, the main air route into the south-eastern part of Finnmark. Many arrive by plane.

The coastal ferry ends its long run here on the Barents coast, while the road east runs to the frontier and the road south carries travellers from the rest of northern Norway to Kirkenes kirke and the harbour at its heart.