Our first stop was during the
evening and visited an active Russian coal mining town named Barentsburg which
was named after the Dutch navigator William Barentsz whom came to Svalbard in
1596 and probably on the eyes of occidental or western civilization would be
the official discovered of Spitsbergen.
The mining activities on the area started in
1912 and in 1932 became property of the Russian state owned Trust of
Arktikugol. There was a brake on the
mining between 1941 and 1946 and currently still in operations.
We did a tour around town guided by local Russian people were they explained the town and its buildings that are being going through a large remodeling. Around 400 persons live here year round some young kids still here but most are now at home on summer holidays. The tour ended with a nice musical show done by the miner workers or their wifes.
