High North Tour 2026: A Troublesome Bridge on The Russian Border

Russia had just launched its attack on Ukraine, and over the following months I would travel along the Finnish-Russian border.

The shop is located just a few kilometres before the border, less than an hour's drive west of the town of Kirkenes in the Norwegian Arctic.

At the time, the discussion over whether Finland should join NATO was still in its infancy, and the Finnish butcher became my first interview subject. I set up with my camera after he had agreed to an interview.

First Finnish interview

It proved difficult to carry out. Not because he was reluctant, not at all. But he did not speak a word of either Swedish or English. And since I did not know Finnish, the conversation became what it often becomes when meeting Finns in the north of the country.

Silent.

We looked at each other before I made one final attempt.

- NATO, OK? I asked.

The answer was a thumbs-up, and I had met my first Finnish NATO supporter in a country where the issue had previously barely been discussed in public. During this journey, it would be emphatically established that he belonged to a Finnish majority.

From support of around 20 per cent at the start of the journey, 80 per cent of Finns backed the Finnish NATO application that was submitted when, a few months later, I parked at the mouth of the Saimaa Canal, at Nuijamaa on the Finnish border with Russia.

A traffic light on the plateau

We greeted each other this time too, though I was unsure whether he recognised me. The shop he runs is a kind of Norwegian convenience store, on the Finnish side of the border.

After grabbing some dried reindeer meat, I continued towards Kirkenes through Neiden, a small Norwegian village. I left behind the old Eastern Sámi settlement of Skoltebyen and Norway's oldest Orthodox church, built as far back as 1565. Then past the Garrison in Sør-Varanger and down the steep hill towards Strømmen Bridge.

There, another rarity appeared, at least in this part of Norway: a traffic light, which at that moment was red.

Langfjordstrømmen Bridge, which is the Norwegian Public Roads Administration's official name for this 50-metre-long bridge, was built in 1952, more than 70 years ago. In December last year, the roads administration carried out an inspection of the bridge.

Less than a week later, traffic on the bridge was controlled by lights. It was simply in too poor a condition for it to be safe to allow traffic to cross in two lanes.

Could it really be that serious?

And that is still the case.

So you may ask, perhaps because you have never been to Kirkenes, whether nearly a year of one-way traffic across a critically damaged bridge can really be that serious?

Yes, it can.

The bridge is located on the Norwegian border with Russia and is the only escape route from Kirkenes on the Norwegian side. It is the very lifeline between Kirkenes and the rest of Norway. The only possible diversion out of Kirkenes should the bridge collapse runs through Russia, a country at war with Europe, and across borders that are currently closed.

In practice, therefore, impossible.

You cannot fly either, because the bridge is located between central Kirkenes and the airport.

If that is not frightening enough, the Sør-Varanger Garrison would also be cut off from the population of Kirkenes. This means, for example, that military equipment and personnel transported by sea to Kirkenes would not reach their destination, the Sør-Varanger Garrison.

In practice, the Hurtigruten coastal express would be the only regular means of getting to and from Kirkenes.

An excellent opportunity

Our readers are well aware of Eastern Finnmark's importance in national and international geopolitical and security policy. Of the High North initiative and civil preparedness. Of the importance of the cliché of resilient communities on the border with Russia.

“Building a new road route and repairing this bridge would be an excellent opportunity to show that the High North policy is being taken seriously. That the seriousness of the situation facing the border town of Kirkenes has been understood,” says the mayor of Sør-Varanger municipality, Magnus Mæland, when I ask how he views the situation.

"And from a purely military perspective, it would undoubtedly be an advantage to have one lane out of and one lane into Kirkenes."

Well, there is little evidence of the decisive action Magnus Mæland calls for in national political plans and decisions.

The Norwegian National Transport Plan for the period 2025 to 2036, adopted before the restrictions on the bridge were introduced, includes plans for an entirely new bridge and a new road alignment. The current bridge, even if it were open in both directions, is itself a bottleneck, with sharp bends both before and after the bridge.

This makes it fundamentally rather unsuitable for heavy vehicles. In addition, winter brings steep and slippery slopes on both sides.

Not until 2036

But the fact that the new road alignment is included in the transport plan does not mean that funding has been allocated. Costs are estimated at NOK 1.5 billion. The plan indicates construction during what is referred to as the plan’s final six-year period, with possible completion towards the end of that period.

That is, around 2036.

The plan has not been revised either after the bridge’s critical condition was revealed. Nor have there been any signals from the Norwegian Minister of Transport Jon-Ivar Nygård.

In the meantime, it has been decided that the existing bridge will be upgraded. But that work has not started either, and no one knows when a decision on the necessary maintenance will be made. Funding is to come from the Norwegian Public Roads Administration’s ordinary maintenance budget.

“Sør-Varanger has been built on international capital, for example in tourism and mining. The first thing venture capital looks at is the public sector’s own development and willingness to invest. The situation at Strømmen Bridge is not the best example of such willingness. This is about both geopolitics and geoeconomics, a test of how High North policy works in practice,” says Magnus Mæland.

A ship tunnel instead

With the Finnish border behind me, I remain in the car waiting for the green light. The hope is that the bridge holds, or holds out, if you will, until the Storting and the government have found the money to repair the bridge or build a new road.

In northern Finland, both railways and roads are being built at a rapid pace as part of Finland’s preparedness.

In Norway, we are instead spending the money on a ship tunnel through the Stad peninsula in Southern Norway.