Barentsburg in Svalbard 2025

Although the time machine hasn't been invented yet, Barentsburg may become a place where you'll travel back in time to the USSR

Best time: mid-May–early October

Barentsburg is a mining town and looks like a typical settlement at the time when people settled down Spitsbergen in the early 20th century. Here coal mine used to be a gold mine, but no more.

Coal mining on the island is no more profitable because coal reserves are running low, and there is no need to deliver them to the continent for such a high price. That's why settlement does not develop, and the continent is too far from bringing new things and trends. Therefore, Barentsburg looks like a living ghost that is stuck in a different time.

If you ignore glaciers, polar bears, and ten months of winter, this settlement looks like a typical place in the days of the USSR: Houses, a Lenin monument, and popular inscriptions such as: "Our goal is communism" and "Peace to the world".

Barentsburg is reachable by boat and can be an amazing place to visit between mid-May and early October when the shore is ice-free.