A monument for the people killed for witchcraft crimes opened last year in Vardø. Photo: Heather Yundt

Her joints were pulled apart by a wooden rack. Her breasts were burned with sulphur. She was tied to the wall with iron rings around her neck, feet, and arms.

Accused of witchcraft, she refused to confess.

“You can torture my body, but not my soul,” historian Liv Helene Willumsen says, recounting the woman's famous words.

Ingeborg, as she is known today, was one of 20 people killed for witchcraft crimes 350 years ago during the third witchcraft “panic” in the fishing community of Vardø, northern Norway.

Demonology

In the 1600s, the belief swept Europe that a hidden army of devil accomplices was hiding in the villages and had to be rooted out and killed.

“There was this understanding that there were two powers fighting for the supremacy of souls," Willemsun says. "And there’s the evil one against God.”

In Finnmark, the trials and executions were particularly severe. The remote northern corner of the Danish-Norwegian kingdom was considered the end of the world and closer to the entrance of hell, Willumsen says.

At the time, there were just 3,000 people living in the region. Still, 135 people were accused of the criminal offense of witchcraft and 91 of them were killed, representing one third of all Norwegian witchcraft death sentences.

The accused were tortured until they confessed to having cast spells that sunk ships, raised storms, or drove the fish away. They often confessed to having participated in group witchcraft, naming other community members.

“You got at once a number of names on the table, and these persons were quickly called in for interrogation," Willumsen says.

Women, in particular, were targeted, as were Sami men, who were believed at the time to be well-versed in magic.

Many people suspected of witchcraft in Finnmark were thrown into the sea with their hands and feet tied to determine their guilt. If they floated, they were guilty. If they sank, they were innocent.  Every one of them floated.

Those convicted of witchcraft were burnt at the stake.

Moving on

Gradually, a more rational ideology become popular and the witch hunts faded out, Willumsen says. The records of the court proceedings are preserved in the State Archives in Tromsø.

A memorial dedicated to the men and women killed for witchcraft crimes opened last year on the shore of the Barents Sea. In the centre of a translucent, black, glass structure, a natural gas flame burns on a wooden chair. Mirrors are angled down from the high ceilings, reflecting the light of the flame. The victims’ stories are remembered on the walls of a dim, narrow building.  

The art installation was a collaborative effort between artist Louise Bourgeois and architect Peter Zumthor.

Australian tourist Pauline Dixon is quite literally on top of the world touring the Norwegian Arctic as part of her three month vacation across Europe.

 

 See soundslide with interview.

 

Her recent travels include sailing the MS Nordlys from Kirkenes to Bergen, Norway. Watch our soundslide featuring Dixon’s interview with the BarentsObserver.

Tromsø comes closer to Russia when direct flights to Moscow start up this summer. Photo: Trude Pettersen

More and more Russian tourists visit Norway, and the northern parts of the country are gaining popularity on the market. The number of Russian tourists increased 15 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. 

Russians spent nearly 187 000 nights in hotels in Norway last year and now count for five percent of all tourists in the country.

The tour operator will have direct flights between Moscow and Tromsø every Friday in July. “This is the breakthrough of the year”, says Head of the Norwegian Tourist Council’s office in Russia Olga Filipenko to RIA Novosti. “Northern Norway is very beautiful and completely different from the fjord regions”. 

What draws Russians to Northern Norway is first of all nature, fishing, the Lofoten islands, North Cape and Svalbard, Filipenko says. The fact that Norway is one of the most expensive countries of the world does not seem to scare Russians away: “This is not what people are thinking about when they visit Norway. They go there for the experiences, they want to go fishing and they want to see North Cape and the fjords”, Filipenko says to Norvegia.ru.

“Jazz Tours” has the largest Scandinavia-department of any tour operator in Russian, with 25 employees working full-time with the region. It is not yet know which airline company will be operating the route.

Once upon a time these wooden churches in the Pinega district in Arkhangelsk was a spiritual center. Today, they are falling apart. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

Traveling the remote parts of Barents Russia without being fascinated by the beautiful wooden churches is impossible. These churches are the symbol of a thousand year old architecture history of the Russian north. You still find them in rural villages, but most are in rather bad shape. Others are moved to open-air museums, like the Malye Korely outside Arkhangelsk and on the Kizhi island in Lake Onega.

A recently published book, authored by Richard Davies and Matilda Moreton, presents photographs of these unique churches. The book, “Wooden Churches – Travelling to the Russian North” presents insights to many of the remaining churches to be found on the countryside and interviews with Russian experts.

“80 percent of Russian wooden architecture that existed pre-1917, no longer exists. But luckily, there is still something left to fight for,” says Professor Vyacheslav Orfinsky at the Architecture Department of the Petrozavodsk State Univierity.

St. Petersburger Mikhail Milchik is not very optimistic. “Wooden architecture, the most original and most unique part of the cultural heritage of Russia, in on the verge of total extinction,” says Milchik.

Today, some 200 churches remain, most dating from the 1700s. On the Kola Peninsula, there are some few along the White Sea coast, while many others are to be found in Arkhangelsk and Karelia. The most famous of them is the Kizhi Pogost, which contains two churches and a bell-tower surrounded by a fence. It is now listed in the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Although many of the other churches that remain in the remote areas of Barents Russia are in varying states of decay and despite their neglect and the wrecking of their interiors, these extraordinary structures have a spiritual presence which commands respect even in the absence of their gilded icons.

“Many churches have been saved by dedicated specialists and enthusiasts, whose untiring work goes on. We hope that the photographs in this exhibition will help raise public awareness of the plight of these wonderful buildings and that more restoration projects will attract the funding they deserve,” the authors of the book write in the introduction.