ИСТИНА

Till recently the Russian-Norwegian cross-border region had reputation of an exemplary contact and collaboration zone between the West and the East of Europe. The long-established peaceful border, Barents cooperation as well as a 30-km visa-free zone for borderlanders are some of the key features of that area. However, in 2015 when the flow of 5.500 migrants and refugees was transiting through the region, the previously achieved reciprocal understanding became questioned. Based on fieldwork in the region done in late 2016 and examination of open sources (i.e. mass media and social networks) the paper seeks to reveal how geopolitical interpretations of the Arctic route have evolved and what consequences it brought to remote Arctic municipalities and border policies of countries involved. As preliminary findings suggest, while globally the Arctic migrant route ever and anon has been labeled as a hybrid war, locally it brought both border municipalities on the edge of a humanitarian crisis and raised serious security concerns among borderlanders on the Russian side. A newly built fence on the Russian-Norwegian border as one of tangible consequences of the migrant transit is a clear testament to re-bordering process, as well as a thickening fear of illegal border crossing. However, the most worrisome barrier that became palpable due to the Arctic migrant route emergence is the “wall of misunderstanding” - a profound mismatch in perceiving the challenge of international migration and the Middle East refugees on the Russian and Norwegian sides of the border.