BARENTSBURG, Norway (AFP) — The statue of Lenin and the hammer and sickle emblems that adorn the Russian enclave of Barentsburg, in Norwegian territory near the North Pole, are potent reminders of Moscow's longstanding claim to the Arctic.
Barentsburg, located in the Svalbard archipelago, has been a Russian mining town since 1932. None of the 500 residents who live here today are Norwegian or even speak the language.
For visitors, the local Norway Post office is the only visible indication of the Scandinavian country's sovereignty, amid a flood of signs in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet.
Around town workers are repainting old buildings, broken windows are being replaced and roads are being repaved, all under the watchful eyes of a Lenin statue that has towered over the main square for decades and murals of glorified Soviet workers.
After falling into disrepair after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the town is now being spruced up -- a clear sign of Russia's interest in the Arctic and the vast oil, gas and mineral riches thought to lie under its ocean floor.
The Barentsburg mine produces just 120,000 tonnes (132,280 US tons) of mediocre-quality coal each year. But for the Russian state mining group Arktikugol Trust, the town's face-lift is all part of a broader plan to reconquer the region.
"We can keep producing up to 2020," the company's site director Boris Nagayk explains.
"But we have another mine in Grumant ... which could be reopened from 2010," he says as workers behind him load a cargo ship with coal destined for Spain.
A few dozen kilometers (miles) away from Barentsburg, the Grumant mine lies abandoned. But according to Nagayk, it contains enough deposits to be mined for another 50 years.
After falling to a low of 300 residents a few years ago, Barentsburg's population could triple from that level in the coming years. Only nine children live here now, but the goal is to get miners to bring over their families.
The Russian presence is made possible by the 1920 Treaty of Svalbard, which gave Svalbard to Norway. The accord grants all of the citizens' of the signatory countries the right to exploit the local resources equally, and forbids any permanent military presence.
According to the US Geological Survey, 25 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas is thought to lie under the Arctic seabed.
The quest for those riches has heated up as melting polar ice makes the region more accessible, and could open the Northwest Passage to year-round shipping by 2050.
Five countries border the Arctic Ocean: Canada, Denmark (Greenland), Norway, Russia and the United States.
The UN convention on the Law of the Sea gives the five the possibility to challenge claims of seabed sovereignty if they want to assert their claims beyond their own 200-mile (320-kilometre) zone. They have 10 years to do so after ratifying the convention.
Of the five Arctic countries only Russia and Norway -- who have laid claims to the seabed around the Svalbard archipelago and part of the Norwegian Sea -- have so far presented such claims.
Russia's renewed interest in the Arctic -- illustrated spectacularly on August 2 when a submarine expedition planted a Russian flag beneath the North Pole, as well as the deployment of Russian bombers over the area -- has not concerned Norway.
Oslo considers Moscow's recent muscle-flexing to be more of a sign of its growing financial strength, thanks to its own lucrative oil and gas resources, than an actual threat.
"We are much more relaxed on that issue," Norwegian International Development Aid Minister Erik Solheim told AFP.
"During the Cold War there were 3,000 Russians on Svalbard and only 1,000 Norwegians," he noted.
Today, the balance of power in the archipelago is the inverse, with some 1,800 Norwegians and 500 Russians and Ukrainians.
Barentsburg's oversized heliport, which still bears the hammer and sickle symbol, bears witness to the once-massive Russian presence.
In Longyearbyen, the capital of the Svalbard archipelago where Norwegians are in the majority, the focus is on good neighbourly relations.
"We have a lot of cultural exchanges," says Per Kyrre Reymert, advisor to the local governor.
"They come here and dance and sing and beat us in chess. We go there to dance, sing and be beaten in badminton."
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