An evolving archive connecting Barentsburg’s museum collections, local knowledge and historical materials with wider research into Svalbard’s cultural landscape.

Cultural Heritage

Materials contributed by

Pomor Museum, Barentsburg — internationally known as Art Arctic Gallery. Adapted from lectures and presentations by Tatiana Betcher.

Institution: Pomor Museum / Art Arctic Gallery

Contributor: Tatiana Betcher

Coal, company towns & the 20th-century Arctic

From hunting grounds to industrial settlements: how coal mining reshaped the human geography of the
archipelago.

Institution: Pomor Museum / Art Arctic Gallery

Contributor: Tatiana Betcher

Willem Barents & the discovery of Spitsbergen

How the search for a northern passage brought Barents to these coasts in 1596, and how his voyages framed European ideas of the High Arctic.

Institution: Pomor Museum / Art Arctic Gallery

Contributor: Tatiana Betcher

Pomors in the Arctic

The Pomor presence on Svalbard: overwintering huts, hunting economies and a maritime culture that predates the industrial North.

Institution: Pomor Museum / Art Arctic Gallery

Contributor: Tatiana Betcher

Whaling in the Svalbard archipelago

A short history of the 17th-century whaling stations that first drew European fleets to Spitsbergen — and the traces they left in the landscape.