IT WAS FOUNDED more than a century ago to settle the workers of an iron mine and, 15 years ago, a forced, complicated, expensive and prolonged “relocation” began both to be able to continue digging in the immense iron vein, where new minerals were discovered.
It is the city Kiruna, located 200 km north of the Arctic Circle and whose transfer, building by building, three kilometers from its current location, although it began a decade ago, will end in two or three more. It is the size of Slovenia and is located in a protected natural area that attracts many tourists, as it includes birch forests, alpine tundra, 7 rivers and 6,000 lakes.
Every time who boasts of the pharaonic transfer of the city center, its mayor Gunnar Selberg, receives a lecture from a very dissatisfied citizen: his wife.
“I tell him: ‘can you imagine? We are part of this history, we build a new city while the old one is destroyed,'” he explains, showing a large model of the reconstruction works of the town.
“And she gets angry with me, she’s disappointed. She thinks it’s sad, she doesn’t want to see the old town anymore, it hurts…”, says the mayor in the great hall of his new Town Hall.
This city, located next to the largest underground mine in Europe, has to move its old historic center to allow it to continue digging in the immense iron vein.
Its 18,000 inhabitants are divided before this colossal operation.
The town, founded at the dawn of the 20th century at the same time as the LKAB mining company to exploit an immense iron deposit, inaugurated its new center last September.
The original and well-founded argument for the inevitable move is that with the underground excavations, several neighborhoods are at high risk of collapsing due to earth movements and the instability that digging their bowels has generated for more than a century.
The first stages of the “move”, whose cost is estimated at 3,000 million euros (3,250 million dollars) and is financed in large part by a century-old mining company, began 15 years ago.
According to the latest estimates, the works will still last between 20 and 30 years. Or maybe twice as much if the mine gets permission to dig further.
“Between Two Cities”
The new Town Hall, a circular building designed by the Danish architect Henning Larsen, was the first to be inaugurated, in 2018.
Nearby is a large tower of a modern hotel, and also a shopping center. A little further away, cranes are working to finish the pool.
But many, including the mayor, acknowledge that change is not easy.
“People tend to think ‘it’s fantastic!’, ‘it’s such a big project’. The (mine) operator LKAB always sells a positive image, where everyone is happy. But it’s not the case for everyone. “Selberg admits.
Residents complain that they are “stuck between two cities,” says the mayor, or “they still want to go to the old town restaurants.”
Whole buildings in the old town, without their occupants or shops, are now protected by blue fences to prevent access, before being demolished.
Currently, 6,000 people are affected, but it could be more if the mining company gets the go-ahead to dig more. The company has also just announced the discovery of what would be Europe’s largest rare earth deposit, just north of the city.
They move entire buildings
Time is pressing in Kiruna. The largest school in the city, whose new premises are not yet finished, begins to show large cracks due to subsidence of the ground.
The most beautiful historical buildings were or will be moved, whole in special convoys. The splendid red wooden church, pride of Kiruna, will follow the same fate in 2026.
In her shop – the oldest in the city, founded in 1907 – Mari-Louise Olsson doesn’t really want to change.
LKAB, the owner of the place, gave him a few more months of contract, as long as he accepts the severance check -of about 65,000 euros (70,400 dollars)- and moves to a location in the new center.
“I’m sad and disappointed,” laments the 63-year-old woman, who sells souvenirs and handicrafts from the Sami, the indigenous people of Lapland.
“The mine is essential, but I would like there to be more consideration for the other companies. It is because of the mine that we cannot stay here any longer,” he told AFP, in his shop in an increasingly ghostly neighborhood.
“Who can put a price on an individual story? You can never compensate with money,” he says.
For her part, one of her locals, Clara Nyström and who, like most residents, endorsed the transfer of a large part of Kiruna in the citizen consultation held years ago, explains that “they want to build meeting spaces, like a square that we did not have. They also want more shopping areas, pedestrian streets, and also -perhaps most importantly- access to nature. We really like living outdoors,” explained one of the locals, Clara
According to the colossal relocation plan, 450,000 square meters of homes, schools and public, commercial and leisure premises will be relocated. It is expected to be finished in 2035.
And the move is literally as heavy as it is complex. Thus, one of the most sensitive constructions in this mess is the emblematic red wooden church, built in 1912. “It is very important for the citizens that the church be moved and not demolished. I think people are looking forward to the day of the transfer,” said the pastor of the city’s Lutheran church, Lena Tjarnberg.
The expansion of the gigantic mine, where new and valuable minerals from the so-called “rare earth” group have been discovered, worries the Sami, the indigenous people of Lapland, who live mainly by herding reindeer. Hence, they have been in permanent contact with the government to reiterate their needs.
“The biological diversity of the Arctic is also crucial for the population of the continent. We cannot depend only on the Amazon rainforest and pretend that by protecting it we can maintain the rest of our consumption habits and the extraction of natural resources in the Arctic for years,” he said. to Euronews, weeks ago, the president of the Sámi parliament, Stefan Mikaelsson.