Ken and I pretty much went to Russia today.

But first, food: Last night’s dinner was reindeer filet with lingonberry sauce. Shockingly good. Delicious, even. And this morning I tried the famous Norwegian brunost, or brown cheese. The name loses some appeal in translation. It’s made from whey (the liquid leftover from cheesemaking). It tastes very nutty and caramel-like. I loved it! Also had a shot of lingonberry and chaga juice. Because it’s good for my “stomack”. Chaga is a mushroom that grows on birch trees around here, and the Sami people use it to cure just about everything.

Back to Russia: Kirkenes is only 7 kilometers from the Russian border. The town was occupied by the Nazis in WWII, as a staging area for their planned assault on Murmansk. But, the Soviets bombed the living shit out of Kirkenes in 1944, and the Germans bailed out, burning the town to the ground on their way out. Kirkenes was then “liberated” by the Red Army. Border relations have historically been pretty good, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made things a little tense around here.

Snowmobile adventure #2: Took a guided tour south into the Pasvik Valley, driving over a frozen fjord, and then a frozen lake, and, some frozen forest land, and some guy’s frozen sheep pasture. Until we got to the Pasvikelva River, which is a water boundary between Norway and Russia. Russia was literally yards away from us. YARDS.

We were told both sides take border control extremely seriously (the border areas are under constant surveillance by the respective militaries, and there are sensors to alert either side to illegal crossings). You are also not allowed to pee toward Russia. I am not making this up. There’s an actual rule (it dates from the 1950s) – and you can be fined 3,000 NOK (about $300). These guys aren’t fucken around. I’ve seen Locked Up Abroad. I stayed firmly on the “not Russia” side of the river. Did not even attempt to pee. I couldn’t wrangle out of my Arctic suit to pull that off, anyway. Ken said he didn’t have any problems. Annoying. Photographs are allowed, so we did do that. One photo taken with Norway in the background, one with Russia.

The snowmobile tour itself ended up being around 70km there and back. Our guide said Ken has now graduated from unofficial snowmobile school. Did you know snowmobile passenger grips are heated? Genius.

I feel like the only nordic activity we didn’t do on this trip is cross country skiing. Did find the XC ski rack, though. Reminded me a lot of my childhood.