Living conditions on the Kola Peninsula

The project was implemented in 1992, almost immediately following the opening of this formerly closed region to foreign visitors. The region is located in the Russian Arctic and borders on Norway and Finland. The local economy is dominated by mineral extraction and fisheries, as well as a considerable military establishment, and has a population of approximately one million.

The project was financed by the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, following increasing Norwegian interest in this border region, for which a new set of policies had to be worked out after the end of former Cold War confrontation.

The study was based on interviews with 2,000 households, distributed over Murmansk city, Pechenga municipality and the garrison town of Severomorsk. Interviews were conducted in May and June 1992, during the initial period of the "shock therapy" policies introduced by the Yeltsin administration.

Publications

• Erik Hansen Living Conditions on the Kola Peninsula (1993)

Researchers

Erik Hansen