Russia. I am here. I am gripped by a sense of disbelief. As the tundra flies past the train window recollections of grainy tv-images from my childhood keep popping up. The marching soldiers and missile batteries being paraded across the red square before the pouty looking Leonid Breshnev and the politbureau looking on from the top of Lenin’s mausoleum. That was scary days. The Iron curtain was impenetrable and Russia was a place only for spies and covert business men and diplomats. That is what it felt like anyway. So here I am, sipping tea in a old, but very confortable sleeper wagon heading up north from Sct. Petersburg towards the artic circle and some spectacular diving during the long days.

The White Sea has sublime water clarity. It forms indescribably beautiful ice and peculiar fantastical ice shapes. The water temperature hovers around 0-10°C and nurtures plenty of marine life, which makes the White Sea one of the best spots in Europe for ice-diving.

All along the shores of the Kola Peninsula in North Russia, Finno-Ugric tribes (Laplander) have lived since the oldest of ages. In the 11th century, the Viking ships appeared here, and then the Novgorods and the Pomors (Russian settlers and traders on the coasts of the White Sea and the Barents Sea) came.

Russia. I am here. I am gripped by a sense of disbelief. As the tundra flies past the train window recollections of grainy tv-images from my childhood keep popping up. The marching soldiers and missile batteries being paraded across the red square before the pouty looking Leonid Breshnev and the politbureau looking on from the top of Lenin’s mausoleum. That was scary days. The Iron curtain was impenetrable and Russia was a place only for spies and covert business men and diplomats. That is what it felt like anyway. So here I am, sipping tea in a old, but very confortable sleeper wagon heading up north from Sct. Petersburg towards the artic circle and some spectacular diving during the long days.

New Sea Farm Raises White Whales in the White Sea

The Cold War has been over for more than two decades, but a relentless red army of monster crabs are still pouring over the border of Russia into Norway. The crabs are feared by environmentalists, but not by scuba divers.