“The world’s first and so far only fishing collective” said the headline of an article published on August 6, 1935 in the Norwegian Communist newspaper «Nordlands Arbeiderblad». The subject of the article was the group of Norwegian fishermen who founded the collective fish farm “Polar Star” on the Tsypnavolok Rybachiy peninsula of the Soviet Union, close to what is now the town of Teriberka. The new operation managed to do achieve what no fisherman in Norway had managed, to literally destroy the capitalistic structure associated with the commercial sale of fish.
The history of the Norwegian colony in in Russia is short – but very dramatic. The first Norwegians to travel eastward left Finnmark around 1860, attracted by the possibilities of trade and good fishing as well as the unique invitation to live on the almost uninhabited northern coast of the Russian Empire. No more than 100 Norwegians dared to cross the invisible border on the edge of the Varenger Fjord to settle in Tsypnavolok.
Both Stalinism and post war history distinguished the former Norwegian settlement from the map – Anna Jermolaewa went on a road trip to document the remains of this former famous place.