Spending your birthday sailing for 18 hours on a musty boat to the shores of the desert and coldest archipelago to stay there for only a few hours after becoming a year older sounds like something not very festive… But, do not jump to conclusions. Sometimes an empty space can be full, in the worst case, you can try to fill it.
And a slow journey across the Arctic Ocean is already a great gift when you just want to take a break from everything. Finally hear your thoughts, and not worry about anything. I admit I slept most of the way.
Not like our stern captain, who was glad that the archipelago was again available for visits. Recent events have led to the fact that previously accessible northern lands have become less accessible, and only a few civilian vessels could dock to the shore.
You know, I had a feeling that these guys who deliver various goods to Svalbard bear the imprint of smugglers from a bygone era, good smugglers. Then the world and the people around it were simpler, fewer borders, fewer papers, fewer laws. And in fact, Svalbard has remained so today.
This is a truly unique place, it is not clear whether it is still in the past or already in the future. Anyone can sail here and disembark, without customs control, without the need to obtain a visa. There is only one condition to stay here permanently - you must prove that you can provide for yourself, either by getting a job here, or by confirming remote income. Just like that. No one is going to look after you and help, just show that you are able to live here. The downside is that no one will support you with any benefits.
By law, it is forbidden to keep cats here, and there is a legend that there is only one cat living in the archipelago, which is documented as a scribe. This is a bit not true, there are already several cats here and this is not very good. They can be a thunderstorm for migratory birds that build nests only on the ground here.
There are really a lot of scribes here and they are not afraid of people at all. In fact, sometimes it seems that all the animals here seem not to notice the presence of a person
Like in the good old days, when you could just sail to America by boat and start a new life there. But this is not America. Still, there are rules that remind you of where you are. These are not the rules of the state, these are the rules of life learned from experience.
By the way, and just like in America, you can't leave the territory of settlements here without a rifle behind your back. Not because of bandits, but because of polar bears, this is their archipelago.
But the key difference is not even in this, but in why people come here, and some stay here forever. Definitely not for the sake of a better life, as adventurers did when going to the new world. Rather for the sake of another life, completely different…
This place is created for those who want to contemplate and think. Not necessarily about something great and eternal, about anything, but focused. After all, contemplation does not consist in admiring paintings full of small details, but rather on the contrary - be able to find what is uncluttered in the concise. And the same goes for thoughts.
For me, it's better to think carefully about one thought, consider it from all sides and get to the bottom of it than to think about 1000 things at once. This place is just that. Precisely for this approach, precisely for such a life. In restrictions to think not about many, but in depth.
When you find a bunch of northern flowers in the middle of bare rocks, it's akin to an explosion of millions of colors on a white canvas.
Reindeer are found here more often than people, and are not afraid of bipeds at all. Of course, this is their land... or almost their land. This is not due to the fact that animals are not used to people here, or vice versa, they are used to it. It's just that the people are different.
Everything is different here. Especially the symbols of eternity that seem to be constants. Which behave differently than anywhere else on earth.
Light behaves strangely, changeable in short periods of time. It seems that the sun is constantly moving across the sky, or vice versa does not move from its place, but the lighting angles and brightness here differ in every second of time.
I still didn't understand what it was connected with, with strange clouds and refraction from the snow that lies here all year round. Or with the slope of the earth's surface.
Speaking of clouds. Even being in my native northern lands 1.100 km to the south, I have repeatedly repeated that the sky there is very low, it seems to you that you can touch the clouds with hand. And now you can see how low they are here:
The height of these coastal rocks is no more than 500 meters. But the clouds are creeping even lower. Either they want to dive into the northern ocean, or they are too heavy because of the ice inside.
But as always, human footprints look the strangest here. As it often happens, at first people did not come here for harmony, then they were still too young and arrogant in relation to the outside world.
Severe frosts and permafrost have preserved traces of whaling yards where brave sailors melted fat hundreds of years ago. Do not blame them for cruelty and greed, because it was just their job, and very hard work. I can't imagine how they fought with polar bears, which even today there are more than 4,000 in the archipelago.
Dead seals are hung as bait in a polar bear trap. This is what they do when a bear constantly returns to the city to catch it.
A hundred years ago, people from another era came here. People who have reached the bowels of the earth and realized that these lands are rich in coal. As for the whalers, it was just a job for them.
It was then that really permanent, modern settlements were formed here. Norwegian and Russian cities (two of which were mothballed and abandoned), and one still continues to mine coal.
Contemporaries perceive life here in a different way, and this is clearly reflected even in buildings that, despite their foreignness, manage to fit into the image of the local nature. Concise and calm. But they still don't let you forget for a second where you are. In one of the most unusual places on earth.
Every human epoch brings here its attributes, artifacts of its time, reflecting our period of development, or maturity. But what is most interesting, I did not see any traces of indigenous peoples here. Not a single stone pyramid (seida), which the Sami leave on the mainland. Maybe it means something… Maybe the Sami thought that it was not worth leaving traces of people in a land where people would never become masters, but could only be guests.
As corny as it may sound, but this is the perfect place to find yourself. To hear yourself without noise, to see yourself without unnecessary husk, to get to know yourself in a vacuum.
Of course, my short half-day visit allowed me to meet myself only for a brief moment, to take a peek. But it was enough to feel that when I left Svalbard, I left on its shores a good friend, little familiar to me, but a native. I think that people come here to find themselves and harmony in themselves. And those who stay here to live forever, find everything they need in themselves and are truly happy.
