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Concept
Kirkenes
Summary
Kirkenes (ˈçîrkəneːs; Girkonjárga ˈkir̥ː.ko.ˌɲaːrːka; Skolt Sami: Ǩeârkknjargg; Kirkkoniemi; Kirkkoniemi; Киркенес) is a town in Sør-Varanger Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, in the far northeastern part of Norway. The town lies on a peninsula along the Bøkfjorden, an arm of the large Varangerfjorden, and is located just a few kilometres from the Norway-Russia border.
The town has a population (2018) of 3,529, which gives the town a population density of . When the neighbouring suburban villages of Hesseng, Sandnes, and Bjørnevatn are all included with Kirkenes, the urban area reaches a total population of almost 8,000 people.
Although Kirkenes is the Norwegian town closest to the Russian border, Vardø to its north is located further east in Norway.
The area around Kirkenes was a common Norwegian–Russian district until 1826, when the present border was settled. The original name of the peninsula was Piselvnes ("Pis River headland"), but this was changed to Kirkenes (meaning "church headland") after the Kirkenes Church was built here in 1862. Kirkenes was a village until 1998 when it received town status.
Operation EF (1941)
During the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, Kirkenes was one of the many bases for the German Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe's Jagdgeschwader 5, and apart from that, the area served as a main base for supplies to the Murmansk front (see Lapland War).
Reportedly, Kirkenes was second after Malta on a list of European towns experiencing air-raid alarms and attacks, with more than 1,000 alarms and 320 air attacks. The town was occupied by the Red Army on 25 October 1944 when the German Wehrmacht was pushed out and fled the area after having destroyed most of the remaining infrastructure. Only 13 houses survived the war.
Close to the town there is a memorial to 11 freedom fighters who helped the partisans collect information about the German occupation. In the summer of 1943, their activities were discovered and many of them were sent to a prisoner-of-war camp near Kirkenes.
Official source
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