Kirkenes is in the extreme northeastern part of Norway. We cruised up over the top of Norway and proceeded to its eastern edge, near the border with Russia. It’s 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Surprisingly to me, Kirkenes is farther east than Saint Petersburg or Istanbul and as far east as Cairo, Egypt. I really had to look at a map to understand that and it still seems odd to me.

Kirkenes is a small town. It has about 3,500 people and with the three neighborhood villages, it’s about 8,000 people. It was about 10,000 people when World War II started. Now here is a trivia question for you. What was the second most bombed town in World War II? Yep, Kirkenes. They had more than 1,000 alarms and 320 air attacks. Why? Germany took over Norway during WW II. The German army moved 100,000 troops into Kirkenes since it was less than 10 miles from the Russian border. Murmansk is Russia’s only ice-free port and it is right next to Kirkenes. Plus, according to one WWII museum exhibit, Hitler was convinced that the Allies would invade Europe through Norway. That makes sense when you consider the Norwegian coast. Anyway, Russia did all the bombing of Kirkenes, not because they didn’t like the Norwegians but to get the Germans and keep them at bay. When Germany finally had to abandon Kirkenes as it was taken over by the Red Army in October 1944, the Germans destroyed the town. Only 13 houses remained after Germany left.

Kirkenes had some industry before the war including some mining. You can see a small section of Kirkenes in the first photo. This is from our ship as we cruised into the harbor.

You can see a World War II bomb shelter in Kirkenes in the second and third photos. This one supposedly held around 1,000 people. We went inside it and watched a movie about the war and the shelters. It was a cold damp shelter.

Russia is less than ten miles from Kirkenes. We stopped near the border but then headed south to Finland. Finland is only a short distance south or west from Kirkenes.

We walked the town of Kirkenes which didn’t take very long. Amongst our other stops was a short visit to Kirkenes Salvation Army store. You can see what Vicky found in this store in the last photo. Yep, we loved Kirkenes.

This was our last stop in Norway. We drove south and were shortly in Finland.