rezidor annual report
nordics
27 franchised
26 leased
6 managed

None of us want to leave Isfjord Radio, it’s such a strange, otherworldly place. But then, the whole of Svalbard is a strange, otherworldly place. On the way back we stop to stare at Barentsburg, a depressing-looking town in the middle of nowhere. It’s wholly Russian, a little bit of the Soviet Union left stranded in Norway. The rights of the Russians were enshrined in the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, and they’ve clung on, even as the USSR collapsed, though the statue of Lenin still stands.

By the time we return, Longyearbyen, which had seemed so tiny and ramshackle when we arrived, now looks like a heaving metropolis. And although it’s liberating to be able to walk around unaccompanied by a woman with a gun – the city limits are considered a polar bear-free zone – it’s not without its dangers.

In a shack above .Longyearbyen, I’m just about to tuck into a plate of reindeer stew when a smell of burning fills the air. I’ve brushed against a candle, it turns out, and my hair is on fire. It’s a rough and dangerous place, Svalbard: forget the polar bears, though, what you really want to look out for are the Ikea tea-lights.