Migration of children from northwest Russia to northern Norway in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: Tevlina, Victoria V.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2012
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Sør-Varanger; Norway; North Norway; Northern Norway; Northwest Russia; Polar Record; Varanger
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247411000611; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247411000611

ABSTRACT The present article focuses on children from Russia, who immigrated to the northern part of Norway in the end of the 1990s and in the first decade of the 21st century. The Russian immigration to north Norway is particularly strong, and therefore it is an obvious choice to focus on this group if one wishes to study Russian immigration to Norway. By studying the immigrants in Sør-Varanger, will we discover some objective tendencies and peculiarities of adaption of Russian immigrants in Norway at large? Attention to children-immigrants’ life in school and outside school, their friendships, their contacts with their homeland and attitudes toward future work, allows us to understand their position, views and level of mutual understanding with those people who surround them in the new country. In the present article special attention is also paid to the parents, first and foremost the mothers, who brought the children to north Norway, and their opinions about the welfare of their children in the new country as well as their own well-being. In many ways these children and their mothers from northwest Russia make a shining example of a successful establishment of a new life style in a foreign country. One may ask, however, is it too successful?