new yorker a tours

TTC family of brands

My Trafalgar

Destinations

Get Inspired

866 513 1995

Trending New York trips

See More New York Trips

5 million happy guests and counting

Capital City

Washington D.C.

Good morning

Good evening

"They call New York the 'City of Dreams' and I love watching our guest's travel dreams come true as they set eyes on the Statue of Liberty, wander through Greenwich Village, catch a real Broadway show, or finally get a taste of a real New York bagel!"

Travel Director

Embark on an orientation tour of the City that Never Sleeps

There’s no better way to dive into the energy of the Big Apple than with your Travel Director leading the way to all the best places in New York. From the glittering uptown penthouses to the charming downtown streets, and from the neon-lit skyscrapers to the lush oasis of Central Park, it’s all about the iconic and the unexpected on our New York tours.

View the towering Art Deco façades of the Empire State Building

You can’t go to New York without setting eyes on the Empire State Building, an icon of the city skyline and a symbol of innovation and triumph - everything that makes New York so unique. A masterpiece of modern engineering, this Art Deco skyscraper is a staggering 102 storeys high, and you can head to the observation decks for panoramic views over the city. 

See the pulsating Times Square

You’ve seen it in countless shows and movies, and now you’ll walk in the footsteps of some of the world’s most famous stars when we take you to Times Square. It’s a hub of adventure, and you can gaze up at the flashing billboards, marvel at the street entertainers, or simply watch the world rush past in the “Crossroads of the World”. 

Go behind the scenes on Broadway

Our New York trips take you to the bright lights of Broadway and beyond, with a very special behind-the-scenes tour of this legendary theater district. You’ll meet a Broadway show performer and find out how the famous shows are created, from the first auditions to the live performance, and all the costumes, choreography and chaos in between.

Ascend to the Top of The Rock for dramatic views of the Manhattan

If you’re looking for stunning views over Manhattan, we’ll take you to the Top of the Rock at the famous Rockefeller Center. First, you’ll feel the thrill of gliding 70 floors into the sky as you ride the elevator to the open-air observation deck. Then, you’ll step out into 360-degree views of the world’s most iconic skyline. It’s an experience you’ll never forget.

Our top 5 things to do in New York

The Big Apple is an adventurer’s playground, and we’ll show you all the very best things to do in New York, from the Empire State Building to the beautiful Strawberry Fields.

American Museum of Natural History

As one of the largest natural history museums in the world, you’ll be amazed by this institution, complete with a planetarium, library and over 34 million specimens from fossils and meteorites to cultural artifacts. Learn about volcanoes in 3D film, marvel at a T-Rex skeleton, discover Native American culture, or even travel to the universe beyond Earth.

Guggenheim Museum

Housed in a UNESCO-listed modernist masterpiece by revered architect Frank Lloyd Wright, you’ll be impressed before you even enter the museum. The spiral ramp and domed skylight make the perfect introduction to the superb collection of modern and contemporary art, including works by Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Vasily Kandinsky and Jeff Koons.

9/11 Memorial & Museum

You’ll have the chance to learn about the tragic history of the 9/11 attacks and World Trade Center bombing at the site where the Twin Towers once stood. We’ll take you around this moving memorial to learn the story of the attacks and the aftermath, and pay tribute to the resilience and strength of the people of New York City.

Best museums in New York

The city’s museums are some of the most incredible places to visit in New York, and we’ll go from iconic art collections and ancient artifacts to moving memorials.

Manhattan clam chowder

Love seafood and soup? You’ll adore this unique clam chowder. It’s famously made with tomatoes and no cream, along with clams, bacon, broth, garlic, red pepper flakes and other vegetables. Created back in the late 19th century in Rhode Island by Portuguese immigrants, it’s still a beloved dish today and you’ve got to give it a try in New York.

New York-style bagel

Soft and chewy in the middle, yet glossy and crunchy at the crust, the New York bagel is one of the city’s greatest masterpieces. It originated from the Jewish community of New York City, and we’ll take you to a 100-year-old Jewish deli in the Upper West Side to taste some of the very best bagels in the city. Don’t forget the cream cheese!

Pastrami sandwich

Famed as New York’s signature sandwich, the classic combo of smoky pink sliced pastrami on rye bread with spicy brown mustard is an unmissable foodie experience in the Big Apple. This delicious invention originated from New York's first Jewish kosher delis in the early 20th century, and we’ll show you all the best places to try this iconic sandwich.

Best food in New York

When you travel New York with Trafalgar, we’ll show you all the best places to taste the city’s most famous eats, including those irresistible New York bagels.

What to pack for New York

Walking shoes

New York is a city that’s best explored on foot, and you’ll need a comfortable pair of shoes to get you around all the famous sights.

Glitzy outfit

With world-class bars, restaurants and theatres, you’ll want to hit the town at least once in the City that Never Sleeps. Bring a glam outfit and you’ll feel like a million bucks.

Portable charger

Your camera and phone are sure to get a workout on your New York tour, so bring a portable charger and save yourself the hassle of trekking back to your hotel to charge them up.

Bring a lightweight, waterproof day bag and use it to store your snacks, water bottle, souvenirs and anything else you pick up on your New York adventure.

Layered clothing

The weather can be unpredictable in this city and the best way to prepare for your New York trip is to bring cool and warm layers that will keep you comfortable in any weather.

Our North & Central America destinations

United States

US National Parks

Other worldwide regions we visit

Africa the Middle East

Australia and New Zealand

South America

Get your free brochure

Find your next escape with the world's leading travel brand

Request A Brochure

Award winning tours

Every year, we're proud to win some of the most prestigious travel accolades around the world - from the Travel Globes to the Agent's Choice Awards

Search Our Tours

Help & Info

WE MAKE TRAVEL MATTER®

Unedited Reviews

Our Destination Management Companies

Frequently Asked Questions

Travel Updates

Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information

Travel Planning

Get Your Free Brochure

Travel Insurance

Booking Conditions

Trip Deposit Level

Recommendations

Trafalgar Tours Limited is a proud member of  The Travel Corporation  family of companies.

#SimplyTrafalgar

Travel House, Rue du Manoir St Peter Port, Guernsey, GY1 2JH

Selected Region

United Kingdom

New Zealand

South Africa

Copyright 2024 Trafalgar. All rights reserved.

Terms and Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Policy

• Private Tours
• Our Partners

• Transportation
• Attractions

Award-Winning NYC Tours

Discover NYC on our award-winning New York City tours and explore the iconic landmarks and unique energy of the city that never sleeps. Choose from bus tours, walking tours, or private tours, all led by certified local tour guides. Book now for an unforgettable NYC sightseeing experience!

Discover NY Bus Tour

Discover NY With a Guided Sightseeing Tour! Book an Award-Winning Bus Tour and Explore NYC With Expert Guides! Luxury Transportation – Choose Closed-Top or Glass-Top Buses.

Big Apple in Lights Bus Tour

Experience NYC’s Nighttime Magic: Join Our Comfortable, Fully-Guided Bus Tour For an Unforgettable Evening Exploring New York City’s Amazing Sites After Dark!

NYC Private SUV Tour

Private NYC SUV Tour: Explore With Your Group, Led by Our Expert Guides and Designated Drivers. Dive into the Heart of the City in Style!

NYC Private Van or Bus Tour

Private NYC Van or Bus Tour: Your Group, Our Expert Guide & Driver. Discover the Best of the City in Comfort and Style!

NYC Holiday Lights Tour

Explore the Magic of NYC’s Holiday Season With Stunning Light Displays, Iconic Sights, and Festive Cheer on This Unforgettable Journey of the Year’s Most Wonderful Time!

Descubre NY (Aquí también – Tour Privado Únicamente)

Las maravillas de Nueva York te van a encantar mientras aprendes la historia de este icónico lugar. ¡Serás llevado en un autobús o una van, caminando y en barco!

Discover NYC With Our Award-Winning Guided NYC Bus Tours

Welcome to USA Guided Tours, your gateway to the electrifying pulse of New York City! Here, the thrill of adventure and the city that never sleeps intertwine in our award-winning NYC bus tours .

Immerse yourself in the city’s pulsating energy, awe-inspiring architecture, and legendary landmarks with our expertly-curated sightseeing tours. Our NYC tours don’t just show you the city – they let you experience the very soul of the Big Apple!

Join our expert tour guides on a captivating journey through the veins of New York City. Unveil the city’s iconic landmarks, historic districts, and hidden gems, all from the plush comfort of our climate-controlled luxury tour bus . Our NYC sightseeing tours are designed as public, private tours, or custom tour options to accommodate all your requirements and interests.

But we’re more than just NYC tours – we’re storytellers, history enthusiasts, and experience creators. Each stop on our guided NYC tours is meticulously chosen to give you a taste of the city’s diverse culture and rich tapestry of history. Whether you’re a first-time explorer or a seasoned traveler, prepare to discover a New York City you’ve never seen before.

Embarking on a USA Guided Tour isn’t just a ride around the city – it’s a vibrant journey through the beating heart of New York City. From mesmerizing skyline vistas to the invigorating city streets, get ready to see the city in a whole new light!

So, what are you waiting for? Book your unforgettable journey through the heart of New York City today!

Customer Testimonials

Rachel was absolutely incredible, she was extremely knowledgeable and a lot of fun. Highly recommend!

Tyler Marie was our wonderful guide on this small bus tour of NYC. She was upbeat and so knowledgeable and happily answered our questions. Would definitely recommend this 6 hour tour. Frequent stops at highlights broke up the time nicely. We had fewer than 30 people on our bus. Our tour never felt rushed! Great experience.

Gil was an amazing tour guide. We booked the 6 hour NYC tour and I can not imagine a better way to see all that we saw in half a day. We started in Times Square, we were educated on history and architecture throughout our day. We made stops in Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Madison Square, the 911 Memorial, Ferry to Staten Island w views of The Statue of Liberty, & so much more. Worth every penny!

I just had the time of my life…. OMG what a great choice I made…!!! My wife and my daughter look at me like a hero…. We had a great time, lots of fun and time enough to do everything…!!! Thank you so much “USA Guided Tours NY” for sure you guys will be my next choice again… I would give you 10 stars but google only lets me do 5 but you guys deserve more… Thanks a bunch…!!!

Recommended NYC Tours

From our blogs, things to do in nyc (2024).

New York City, the city that never sleeps, is a whirlwind of energy and excitement. Its iconic skyline, a tapestry of shimmering skyscrapers, beckons dreamers and adventurers. From the neon glow of Times Square to the serenity of Central Park, hole-in-the-wall eateries to Broadway’s bright lights, NYC offers an endless array of experiences. Whether you…

A Tour Guide’s New York City

In partnership with TripAdvisor, we’re highlighting top-rated tour guides from around the world who go above and beyond to create unforgettable experiences, as proven by traveler reviews. Read on for top tips, local expertise, and more. It can be hard to stand out in a city of more than 8 million people, but not for…

NYC Trip for Foodies: A Flavorful Tour of the City’s Best Eats

New York’s vibrant and diverse culture separates it from any city in the world. The food scene is an important part of New York that must be explored on a trip to the city. The variety, ranging from Italian cuisine to Korean street food, trumps ones in many other parts of the country. However, with…

Your Guide to Touring the City

Excellent tour! Elvis is a walking black history encyclopedia!

What an incredible tour! Just look at all the amazing sites that we got to visit! I loved doing the night tour because although it goes fast, you avoid the crowds and the heat.

As I sat in my nice air conditioned bus an and sipped my complimentary water I was glad I didn’t take the other tours in the middle of July during the muggiest part of summer. Worth the money!

Rachel is an amazing tour guide. Her knowledge about NYC is stunning. Very satisfying tour. It is a must for everyone who wants to know almost everything about NYC in one day!

Me and my friend did the day tour tour, omg what fun, so much info, seen places I didn't think about. So worth the money, I would so do again!

Our guide was outstanding. He was extremely knowledgeable and polite. And kudos to our bus driver for maneuvering effortlessly through NY traffic!

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By using our site you consent cookies.

Privacy Overview

• TOURS BUS TOURS BOAT TOURS & CRUISES HELICOPTER TOURS ESCORTED TOURS WALKING TOURS DAY TRIPS FROM NYC
• ATTRACTIONS & MUSEUMS MUSEUMS ATTRACTIONS OBSERVATION DECKS
• PASSES & PACKAGES
• TRANSPORTATION
• AGENT LOGIN
• MORE DISCOUNT COUPONS GARDENS & ZOOS BIKE RENTALS AMUSEMENT PARKS

NYC tours and attratctions

Looking for things to do in New York? Choose from a variety of options including multi-day sightseeing passes, tickets to popular attractions including One World Observatory , Double Decker bus city tours, and more!

• Bus Tours Hop-on, Hop-off Tours Guided Bus Tours
• Attractions Attractions Museums Packages Views
• Transportation
• Browse Categories Attractions Helicopter Tours Walking & Bike Tours Boat Tours Day Trips
• Agent Login

Experience NYC Like Never Before with CitySights NY

Discover the ultimate NYC sightseeing experience with our extensive selection of New York City tours and discounted tickets to top attractions and activities. Explore the city at your own pace with our hop on hop off bus tours and Circle Line boat tours . Don't miss the chance to visit iconic landmarks like the One World Observatory and Empire State Building. And with our Sightseeing Pass , you'll enjoy convenience and flexibility as you choose the attractions that interest you most. Immerse yourself in the vibrant sights and sounds of New York City with CitySights NY.

+1 (212) 445-7599

GO Airlink NYC, 700 Rockaway Turnpike, Lawrence, NY 11559, United States

Copyright © CitySightsNY.com 2024

• NYC TOURS BUS TOURS HELICOPTER TOURS CRUISES & BOAT TOURS VIP TOURS DAY TRIPS NYC WALKING TOURS
• ATTRACTIONS & PACKAGES PASSES PACKAGES MUSEUMS ATTRACTIONS OBSERVATION DECKS GUIDED WALKING TOURS NEW YORK BIKE TOURS AND RENTALS
• MORE DISCOUNT COUPONS TRANSPORTATION GET A QUOTE NYC TRIP PLANNING
• AGENT LOGIN

Book Tours & Attractions through New York Sightseeing

Book your nyc tours and attractions through new york's #1 tour company and let gray line new york sightseeing take care of all the details., gray line new york sightseeing serves millions of tourists every year, which is why we've earned the #1 spot for nyc hop on hop off bus tours, attractions, nyc boat tours, and more.

NYC Bus Tours

NYC Attractions

NYC Tour Packages & Passes

Day Trips from NYC

NYC Helicopter Tours

NYC Boat Tours

We invite you to discover the city that never sleeps. From the towering Statue of Liberty to the awe-inspiring Empire State Building, from the bustling Times Square to the serene Central Park, our expertly guided tours will bring you up close and personal with the iconic landmarks that have made New York a global sensation. With our large selection of tours and attractions, you'll delve into the heart and soul of NYC, soaking up its rich history, culture, and breathtaking sights. Our knowledgeable guides will share fascinating stories and insider tips, unveiling the hidden gems and giving you a genuine taste of what makes New York City so special. With our seamless logistics and top-notch customer service, you can relax and enjoy every moment of your adventure.

+1 (212) 445-7599

GO Airlink NYC, 700 Rockaway Turnpike, Lawrence, NY 11559, United States

Copyright © NewYorkSightseeing.com 2024

NEW YORK CITY

Your tour in the city of dreams, on a new york city tour, experience the enchanting charm of nyc's hidden gems and iconic landmarks. our exceptional excursions offer a captivating exploration of the city's must-visit attractions. immerse yourself in the true essence of nyc as our experienced, licensed guides lead you on an unforgettable adventure. choose from various tour options, including personalized private tours tailored perfectly to your interests and schedule.discover the authentic spirit of nyc with ny see tours and book your adventure today, ny see tours: explore the beauty of new york city.

Welcome to the vibrant world of New York City tours! If you’re ready to immerse yourself in the captivating energy of the Big Apple, you’ve come to the right place. Explore the city through a new lens with NY See Tours.

Oppenheimer in NYC - Manhattan Project Sites Tour

Get ready to embark on an exciting and illuminating manhattan project tour along beautiful riverside drive to explore the fascinating atomic history of new york city with ny see tours. discover the birthplace of the groundbreaking manhattan project, which ultimately led to the creation of the atomic bomb. visit the sites where dr. robert oppenheimer, known as the "father of the atomic bomb," was born and raised on the picturesque and still mostly unchanged riverside drive., manhattan project tour $65, dyker heights christmas lights tour: the most spectacular lights in new york city, for many years, the houses and mansions of the dyker heights section of brooklyn have been adorned with the boldest and brightest displays of holiday lights anywhere in new york city. after a scenic drive through manhattan and into brooklyn, you'll stroll the streets of the heights, dazzled by the lights and decorations., central park secrets tour: exploring the hidden gems of new york city's most famous park, central park is enormous; eight hundred and forty-three wooded acres. within those confines are hidden areas rarely seen by out-of-towners. the north wood abounds with waterfalls, ravines, deeply wooded arbors, a world-renowned bird sanctuary., public tour $50 | private tour $400, the mafia in manhattan: a tour of new york city's organized crime, join us to explore little italy's mafia history on a two-hour walking tour of one of new york's most famous neighborhoods and its connections to some of america's most fearsome bad guys., central park geology: the making of a landscape, our central park tour offers unique insight into manhattan's fascinating geology. the park is one of the few places where one can still see manhattan before all the construction eliminated the original landscape., chelsea highline tour: the ultimate guide to new york city's most popular public park, new york is a city of neighborhoods, and few districts have changed more over the city's 400-year history than chelsea and the west side. this area has been home to military forts, the meat packing industry, maritime trade, factories, and the trans-atlantic passenger trade., cryptocurrency tour: a beginner's guide to the world of crypto, the world of cryptocurrency is advancing at a rapid pace. there are daily stories in the media about its ascendancy. this introductory walking tour is designed for the cryptocurrency novice; it will provide a primer on this emerging technology and financial system., coney island fireworks tour: a night of fun and fireworks, every friday night from june 23rd until august 25th, the coney island fireworks show spectacularly lights up the night sky over coney island. join us as licensed tour guide brooklyn jim leads you on a fun-filled three-hour tour to one of america's favorite amusement parks., public tour $50, downtown manhattan architecture and history tour: from the dutch colonial period to the present day, manhattan's history is unique among the cities of the united states. new york city shaped this country and the world. to understand the city, you have to start where it began. join us to explore the streets alexander hamilton, george washington, and aaron burr knew well., ghosts of new york city: a walking tour of old manhattan, lower manhattan is the oldest part of new york city; it is an excellent location to learn about groundbreaking public art and architecture. the southern tip of the island, the battery, is the birthplace of modern america., world trade center - evening tour the rebirth of lower manhattan:, your tour of the world trade center 9/11 memorial begins as the sun is setting and the crowds have thinned. then, the memorial is more tranquil, and the sound of the rushing waterfalls calms., grand central terminal: a new york city icon, grand central terminal enters its second century and continues to evolve as new york city's indispensable transportation center. discover the genius and ingenuity behind the creation of this groundbreaking masterpiece., greenwich village walking tour: a cultural and historical journey, greenwich village, or "the village," as new yorkers call it, is one of manhattan's most famous and influential neighborhoods. it has something for everyone, great food, unique shopping, and a richly fascinating history., titanic tour: the untold stories, on your new york city titanic tour, you will discover the indelible legacy the titanic has left upon these shores. at the tour's end, you will see the former pier 54, where the rms carpathia docked, bearing the 712 surviving souls., what they say: ny see explorers, new york city | tour reviews.

WELCOME TO NY SEE TOURS

NY See Tours is a New York City tour agency that has been joyfully providing guided tours in the city since 2010. Its founder, Fred Pflantzer, is a native New Yorker who has never lost his enthusiasm for all things NYC.

Our goal is to share with you the love and excitement we feel for this wondrous city we call home.

NY See Tours is a trusted and well-reviewed tour agency that has provided unforgettable NYC tours for numerous individuals, couples, families, and friends since 2010. Fred Pflantzer, the proprietor of NY See Tours, is a rare breed, a native New Yorker. Born on the lower East side of Manhattan, Fred has never lost his passion for all things New York, his charming NY accent, and sense of humor. Fred has been a licensed professional tour guide since 2010.

Why Should You Explore NYC With an Experienced Tour Guide?

New York City features many iconic landmarks, vibrant neighborhoods, and rich cultural experiences. While it’s tempting to venture out on your own, exploring this vast city with the assistance of an experienced tour guide can greatly enhance your visit. Here’s how:

Insider Knowledge and Expertise

Access to local recommendations, time efficiency and convenience, safety and security.

While New York City is generally a safe destination, having a tour guide by your side provides an added layer of security, especially in unfamiliar neighborhoods or crowded areas. New York tour guides are knowledgeable about the city’s safety measures and can offer advice on how to navigate urban environments, avoid potential risks, and keep your belongings secure.

Enhanced Cultural and Historical Understanding

Personalized experiences, unique experiences.

Perhaps the most significant takeaway is the unique experiences that can only come through a tour guide. For example, a tour guide may take you into their favorite dive bar. They may know of a neighborhood block party that only happens so often. They could tell you a story about an ordinary building. The context tour guides can provide gives you a unique look at the city that you may not find anywhere else.

• Available 24/7
• (917) 319 5144
• [email protected]
• New York, USA

Private transportation

Personalized attention, do you need transportation in new york.

We provide private transportation service from JFK, LaGuardia & Newark airports to the hotels or place of accommodation and vice versa. Service from cruise terminals in NY and NJ. Private transportation to the outlets in NJ & NY or wherever you want to go in these awesome cities.

WE HAVE ALL KINDS OF VEHICLES

Limo & luxury cars services.

With our Limo and luxury car service we aim to exceed your expectations. An attentive driver will provide a secure and relaxing journey  to the big apple.

We have the vehicles you need

We have different comfortable and modern vehicles.

Join the adventure

Indicate the day, time and how many passengers. 

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!

Get us in your inbox

Sign up to our newsletter for the latest and greatest from your city and beyond

By entering your email address you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy and consent to receive emails from Time Out about news, events, offers and partner promotions.

Awesome, you're subscribed!

The best of New York for free.

Sign up for our email to enjoy New York without spending a thing (as well as some options when you’re feeling flush).

Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

Love the mag?

Our newsletter hand-delivers the best bits to your inbox. Sign up to unlock our digital magazines and also receive the latest news, events, offers and partner promotions.

• Things to Do
• Food & Drink
• Time Out Market
• Coca-Cola Foodmarks
• Attractions
• Los Angeles

The 18 best tours and walks to explore NYC in 2024

Take one of these amazing NYC tours and let an expert show you the city like you've never seen it before

With so many must-see attractions in NYC , a visit to the city can be overwhelming. The best NYC tours — whether by land, sea or air — can help you make the most of your visit. Even locals will enjoy these tours and maybe learn something new (or discover a few secret NYC destinations) by taking an off-the-beaten-path tour . Choose your own adventure: walking tours, boat tours, bike tours and helicopter tours are all great ways to see the city, and the expert guides will leave you with a satisfying taste of the city. Looking for something more specific? There are food tours, movie tours, art tours, architecture tours and more. Whatever part of NYC you want to explore, there’s a tour for you, and you’ll have fun while learning everything you need to know about the Big Apple.

Want to traverse a little more in 2024? 

Get curious with   the best non-touristy things to do in NYC  

Frolic through NYC's most beautiful  parks

Discover   the city's best lesser-known attractions

Eat through  the best food tours in NYC  

This article includes affiliate links. These links have no influence on our editorial content. For more information, click  here .

Been there, done that? Think again, my friend.

Best NYC tours

1.  big bus new york hop-on hop-off tour.

The quintessential city tour of all tours, hop-on hop-off's get some major props for ease, accessibility, and price. Map-reading and subway-taking not your strong suit? No worries — even the most directionally-challenged traveler can enjoy Big Bus Tours, condensing a sightseeing fest including thirty landmarks into one trip. Be sure to watch out for famous points of interest as you go with the aid of a live tour guide (and go-to know-it-all about New York attractions). And if something catches your eye? Just hop off wherever you fancy — simple. Choose from routes running in downtown, uptown, Harlem, and Brooklyn and get from Wall Street’s Charging Bull statue to the green meadows of Central Park with ease. Basically, it's an easy option for seeing as much or as little as you want of the city in one day – and not stress out about maps or super expensive Uber fairs.

2.  Lower East Side Food and History Walking Tour

Come hungry: This food tour is really what NYC dreams are made of. You'll start this feasting adventure with a mammoth pastrami and rye at Katz's  Delicatessen, then head to a Dominican breakfast counter to sample a classic local speciality. After that, your guide will get you to taste your way through a legendary local market, legacy cheese shop, Chinatown, historic bodegas, a 19th century Jewish family pickle recipe, and finally (if you've got the room) an artisan donut shop where the flavors promise to delight you. It’s also not all about the food: Your guide will explain how a diverse spread of cultures and people have shaped, this neighborhood and the food it eats as you walk.

3.  Sex and the City Hotspots Tour

What Sex and the City fan hasn’t daydreamed about switching lives with Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, or Charlotte for the day? The over-the-top outfits, glamorous parties, and outrageous dates might be too good to be true, but at least the scenery is true to life. You'll hop around to 40 iconic locations, including  Carrie’s brownstone , some of the girls’ favorite bars (including the one owned by Steve and Aiden), and an X-rated store featured on the show during this epic bus tour. There might even be time to stop for a Cosmo.

4.  Small Group Central Park Bike Tour

You’ll cover much more of Central Park’s 843 acres of meadows, woods, and ponds on a bike than you ever could on foot. Meet up with the guide from Central Park Tours Inc. to pick out your wheels for the day, then set off from the south end of the park. You’ll spy iconic landmarks, plus a few lesser-known gems. And since the tour is always capped at just eight people, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to ask questions along the way and maybe even make a new friend or two. Oh, and you know, we could think of worse ways to stay fit and save the planet. 

5.  Circle Line: New York Landmarks Cruise

As far as skylines go, Manhattan's is a hard one to beat. There's the Statue of Liberty leading the way from Ellis Island, Brooklyn Bridge showing off its architectural beauty, and the Empire State standing tall – all of which make for a stunning view from the water. Sail around New York harbor on the Circle Line cruise, which heads up the Hudson, as well as rounding the Brooklyn bay areas. You'll also hear the history and stories behind all of the sights, so fill up on the facts and don't hesitate to ask a question or two. 

6.  9/11 Memorial and Ground Zero Walking Tour

Remember the lives lost during the tragedy that was 9/11 by visiting the site where the World Trade Center once stood. Now known as Ground Zero, your guide will share facts, figures, and real-life stories with you – making for a trip that is insightful, informative, and moving all at once. Starting at Broadway 203 E, you'll stop at the  Fireman’s Memorial,  twin reflecting pools, One World Observatory, and  St Paul’s Chapel. For a little more, you can choose to book a tour that includes ticket access to the 9/11 Museum. 

7.  Central Park TV and Movie Sites Tour

With 843 acres of meadows, woods, and streams, Central Park offers a gorgeous green backdrop for filmmakers. So perhaps it’s no surprise that countless movies have been set here, from When Harry Met Sally to Ghostbusters . Movie buffs will recognize the skating rink featured in Serendipity , the people-watching scene from Annie Hall, and the path that Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Jules Munshin biked along in On the Town . This two-hour walking tour takes you to 40 film locations within the park, though hundreds more exist.

8.  Champagne Brunch Sail

Fresh air, ocean waves, unlimited prosecco, and a massive brunch spread of bagels, lox, cream cheese, quiche, fresh fruit, and more—it’s fair to say that this midday cruise on a roaring twenties-style yacht really does have it all. Sit back and relax as the crew guides the restored 1929 sailboat out into the harbor.  Sip champagne and mimosas, gaze at the skyline, and, if you’re lucky – the captain will even let you take a turn at the helm.

9.  Brooklyn Bridge Bike Tour

Boasting some of the most jaw-droppingly spectacular views in the city, the Brooklyn Bridge is a beacon for snap-happy tourists. But don't let your only experience of this stunning structure and its incredible views be through the viewfinder of your camera. Put the gadgets down and take a bike ride across the bridge to really soak up the scenery. This 'Bike and Roll' tour takes about three hours, running at a  leisurely pace with  plenty of time for photo stops. Make sure you make the most of your guide, who is sure to have bags of knowledge about the bridge's history and architectural details. 

10.  Sugar Hill and Washington Heights Tour

Sugar Hill got its name during the Harlem Renaissance, as “life was sweet” for the wealthy African Americans who lived in the district. Thurgood Marshall, Langston Hughes, and Duke Ellington all spent time in the row houses here. Peep the stunning Queen Anne–style architecture and immerse yourself in the vibrant community on this walking tour of the area.

11.  Roosevelt Island Tour

Few visitors know anything about Roosevelt Island, a secluded residential community that feels worlds apart from the rest of the city. Once used for insane asylums and hospitals, Roosevelt Island is now home to a thriving population of about 14,000 residents. But, if you have the stomach for it, revisit the island's troubled past on the 'Island of Lost Souls: Madness and Medicine' tour. Pass eerie sites, like the neo-Gothic ruins of the smallpox hospital, the first pathological and bacteriological research lab, and the NYC Lunatic Asylum which opened in 1841. After you learn about the island’s history, board the aerial tram for a sky-high trip over the East River into Manhattan.

12.  Best of Brooklyn Half-Day Food and Culture Bus Tour

Despite Manhattan's abundance of white-clothed, Michelin-starred dining rooms, some are now touting Brooklyn as the epicenter of food culture in NYC. Either way, it's impossible to deny that Brooklyn's dining scene is incredible, from pierogis in Greenpoint's Polish stronghold to tacos and pupusas in Sunset Park and trendy farm-to-table newcomers in Williamsburg. To provide a thorough understanding of the borough's eats, this half-day tour will take you through all those neighborhoods, as well as Dumbo, the waterfront neighborhood where you'll enjoy sweets from the renowned Jacques Torres chocolate factory.

13.  Statue of Liberty Express Cruise

Perfect for the sightseer who knows exactly what they want, this Circle Line express tour goes right to the Statue of Liberty – no pit stops this time. Listen to an expert guide point out some lower Manhattan landmarks before pausing for photos right next to Lady Liberty. And since this cruise only takes an hour, it’s easy to fit into even the busiest itinerary.

14.  High Line, Chelsea & Meatpacking District Walking Tour

What started life as an unremarkable elevated railway is now famous across the world and one of New York's most photogenic landmarks. The High Line is a public park, rotating art gallery and perennial tourist attraction stretched, as the name suggests, high over the bustling city streets below. Take a two-hour walking tour and explore the full span of this green oasis, making sure to take in the architecture and unique history of Chelsea and the Meatpacking District while you do it. Make sure you save some time to shop in Chelsea Market afterward – and don't forget to snap a pic of the lush greenery. 

15.  Ghost Tour of Greenwich Village

You’d never know it from the looks of Washington Square Park, but Greenwich Village has a sinister past. At the northwest corner of the park is the Hangman’s Elm, one of the oldest trees in the city and the site of at least one public execution. Master of horror Edgar Allan Poe once lived in the neighborhood, and rumor has it that artist John La Farge still haunts the nearby Church of the Ascension. Delve into the neighborhood’s gruesome past on this two-hour ghost tour, and discover all of its haunting secrets. Just be sure to wear comfortable shoes!

16.  The Sopranos Filming Locations Tour

Technically speaking, this tour takes you outside the five boroughs, but The Sopranos is such an iconic New York show that we couldn’t leave it out. After you board the bus in Midtown, you’ll go through the Lincoln Tunnel – the site of the show’s unforgettable opening sequence – on your way to the New Jersey suburbs. There, you’ll check out the Bada Bing! strip club, Big Pussy’s auto body shop, and the restaurant featured in the final scene of the series.

17.  Brooklyn Graffiti and Street Art Walking Tour

There's much more to art in New York than just the paintings, photography, and sculptures exhibited in its many prestigious museums. Graffiti started life in the Big Apple and NYC remains at the very forefront of the street art world to this day. Discover some of the city's very best outdoor artworks and murals across Brooklyn. You won’t find these artists hanging in any gallery. Yet.

18.  Circle Line Harbor Lights Cruise

There's only one thing more spectacular than New York's skyscrapers glimmering in the sun – the famous skyline dramatically lit up against the night sky. This twilight boat cruise whisks you across New York Harbor as the sun goes down. A climate controlled boat will be your base as you sail past (and under) the Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg Bridges.  The 105-minute trip is a great way to get awe-inspiring views of the city and a much-needed moment of calm out on the water.

More NYC tours and walks

The best statue of liberty tours.

• Things to do
• Walks and tours

Get up close and personal to Lady Liberty herself on one of these six Statue of Liberty tours

The best tours of off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods in NYC

• Sightseeing

Go outside your comfort zone to visit off-the-beaten-path neighborhoods like Washington Heights or Forest Hills

19 booze tours in New York City

Look past the endless assortment of beer and wine bars in NYC, and instead sign up for one of these booze tours

The best bike tours in NYC

Ready to bike, New York? Find the best bike shops, pedal through the prettiest routes and more with our guide.

The best food tours in NYC

With more than 20,000 restaurants in Gotham, it’s hard to know where to begin—unless you book a comprehensive food tour

Eight things in NYC you can only do on guided tours

Guided tours aren’t just for the most well-known New York attractions: They can also give you a behind-the-scenes look at what some call the “secret New York”

The best NYC bus tours

In a rush to see all of NYC? Bus tours are your most efficient option.

The best walking tours in NYC

New York natives and first-time tourists alike will discover parts of the city they’ve never seen before on the best walking tours in NYC

The best TV and movie tours in NYC

Spot  Carrie Bradshaw’s stoop from Sex and the City , the deli from  When Harry Met Sally and more film locations on these TV and movie tours in NYC

The best boat tours in NYC

Why settle for exploring the city by bus or taxi when you could cruise the harbor on a boat tour in NYC? 

The best walking tours for theater lovers in NYC

Come on along and listen to the lullaby of Broadway on one of these walking tours for theater lovers in NYC

14 tours to help you see NYC by land, by air and by sea

Whether you book a tour by helicopter, speedboat or bike, you'll see New York City from a new vantage point

The best helicopter tours in NYC

Soak up exhilarating views of the city’s stunning skyline on one of the best helicopter tours NYC has to offer

From the classic double-decker bus trip to a Sex and the City excursion, here are the best NYC bus tours for sightseeing

Uncover some of NYC’s secrets on these unique tours

Peel back the veil of mystery on one of these nine tours

Take this taco walking tour for the best day ever

Over the past few years, New York has slowly begun to experience a taco renaissance. What is better than a walking tour to see (and taste) all of the best bits?

The NYC walking tour of the High Line

This elevated stretch of greenery is one of NYC's most beloved walks—here's why

The NYC walking tour of Brooklyn's most beautiful brownstones

Go on—let yourself get house-envy on this pretty Park Slope walk

The six most romantic fall walks in NYC

Whether you want to keep a first date going or you're looking for a budget-friendly afternoon, New York provides some of the best places for a romantic stroll

The NYC walking tour of the city's prettiest cobbled streets

Brooklyn Heights offers old-world charm in a modern city. Check out this walking tour to see it in all of its glory

The best ghost tours NYC has to offer

If you aren’t afraid to get a little spooked, sign up for one of Gotham’s creepy and informative ghost tours

The best art walks in NYC

Check out our complete list of the very best NYC art walks to get your fill of New York’s bustling gallery scene

The NYC walking tour of Bushwick's best graffiti

Get a glimpse of the latest works to spatter the industrial ’hood

The NYC walking tour of cool outdoor drinking spots in Williamsburg

Down artisanal brews at cool bars with roof decks, gardens and backyards

The NYC walking tour of Chelsea galleries

Get your fill of the city's art scene for free

The NYC walking tour of Ditmas Park's Victorian mansions

A (very cool) taste of the ’burbs with some cocktails

The NYC walking tour of the Queens waterside

Some of the best views of NYC, plain and simple

The NYC walking tour of Wave Hill in the Bronx

Wave Hill offers a supremely scenic escape—without the trek to the countryside

The NYC walking tour of Staten Island's architectural treasures

Tibetan art, a Frank Lloyd Wright home and a lighthouse tucked away in a suburban enclave

The 5 best New York tours of cemeteries

Learn about the oldest nonliving residents of New York City with these ghostly tours

Take a behind-the-scenes tour of an abandoned rail line in Queens

• Events & Festivals

The abandoned lines of the Rockaway Beach branch of the LIRR has a proposal in place to become “the Queensway”, a pedestrian and bike-friendly walkway running through the center of Forest Park

Archive NYC tours and walks coverage

Fall tours of new york: walking and biking tours of nyc.

Street art tours: See graffiti on these New York walking tours

Cheap New York: Cheap walks and tours

• price 1 of 4

Great walks: Fifty Shades of Grey

[image] [title]

Discover Time Out original video

• Press office
• Investor relations
• Work for Time Out
• Editorial guidelines
• Privacy notice
• Do not sell my information
• Cookie policy
• Accessibility statement
• Terms of use
• Copyright agent
• Modern slavery statement
• Manage cookies
• Claim your listing
• Local Marketing Solutions
• Advertising

Time Out products

• Time Out Worldwide

Real New York Tours

Since 2007 Real New York Tours has given thousands of tours to people from around the world who want to experience real New York. We are locals who live it, breathe it, love it, and want you to as well. We explore the history, the cracks and crevices, the side streets, and culture of real New York neighborhoods. We will walk the streets and meet the people who have become the fabric of this great city. Real PEOPLE, Real STORIES, Real NEW YORK!

Private Walking Tours of NYC

See NYC with your own private tour guide. Have the flexibility to customize your itinerary, pace, and start time. Do it the way real New Yorkers do it every day, by subway and foot.

Private Driving Tours of NYC

Enjoy the sites of the city from the comfort of your own luxury vehicle with a driver and guide. We will exit the vehicle for short walks so you can have the feel of a walking tour with the comfort of a vehicle tour.

NYC in a Day Group Tour

Our Most Popular Tour of New York is back! Small Group of up to 13 Guests 6 Hour Tour of Manhattan From Central Park to Wall Street By Subway and foot Meets at 1633 Broadway @ 10am $90/person

Christmas Tour of NYC

Our Christmas in NYC Tour explores the most famous scenes of Christmas in NY as well as historical origins of great Christmas traditions.

Hamilton Tour of NYC

Our long time friend Jimmy Napoli is back from his adventure in Saint Croix and taking bookings for his one and only Hamilton Tour. Jimmy was talking about Hamilton 20 years before the Broadway musical made Hamilton trendy. Lin Manuel Miranda even came to hear him lecture! Jimmy's Hamilton tours are fun, informative and delivered with a passion rivaled by no one. The only thing better than Jimmy’s Hamilton tour would be if Hamilton did it himself!

Live Virtual Zoom Tours

Let us bring New York City to you! With our Zoom, Live Streamed Virtual Tours you can still see the sites, interact with your guide and get a feel for NYC from the comfort of home. Our guides will be on the streets in real time bringing the city directly to you!

Looking For A Unique Gift?

Share a fun experience with your family or friends from across the globe with one of our Live Virtual Zoom Tours . Let us bring New York City to you in real time, from the streets, from a local. Set a date or purchase a Gift Certificate to use anytime.

Our Most Popular Private Tours of NYC

Explore New York City with your own private tour guide. Go at your own pace and focus on the sites and areas that are most interesting to you.

NYC in a Day

See Real New York Tours featured on...

• Entertainment
• Celebrities
• Ticket Sales

trending now

Ina Garten gets candid on separation from husband Jeffrey: He...

Boar's Head discontinues former fan favorite after it's...

NASA issues alert for fast-moving, stadium-sized asteroid...

Pregnant mom, husband drown on Hawaii vacation, leaving behind...

Thousands of Hezbollah fighters injured in Lebanon when their new...

Delta pushes strict underwear regulations for flight attendants...

Meet Diddy's 'manipulator in chief,' who was once compared to...

Sean 'Diddy' Combs to be held without bail on sex-trafficking...

Coldplay announces 2025 uk concerts. get tickets today.

Oasis isn’t the only hot ticket in the U.K. in 2025.

Coldplay just announced they’re striking out on a quick eight-concert run next summer as part of their ongoing ‘Music Of The Spheres World Tour’ aka “the biggest rock tour of all time” according to Billboard Boxscore .

The run will start with a pair of back-to-back gigs at Hull’s Craven Park on Aug. 18-19. After that, they’re slated to play six (!) shows at London’s Wembley Stadium .

“These are the only UK/European cities where the band will perform next year,” the seven-time Grammy winners shared via Instagram .

There is currently no word on whether or not Chris Martin and co. will perform in the U.S. in 2025; the last time the “The Scientist” band performed in North America was back in October 2023.

On Oct. 4, Coldplay is slated to release their tenth studio album “Moon Music.” The album’s two lead singles can be heard here.

Fans can purchase tickets for all upcoming Coldplay U.K. shows on sites like Vivid Seats; the official on-sale is Friday, Sept. 27.

Vivid Seats is a secondary market ticketing platform, and prices may be higher or lower than face value, depending on demand.

They have a 100% buyer guarantee that states your transaction will be safe and secure and will be delivered before the event.

Coldplay U.K. tour schedule

A complete calendar including all tour dates, venues, and links to buy tickets can be found below.

Coldplay set list

Although Coldplay hasn’t performed in the U.S. in nearly a year, the band has played live shows at venues all over the world in 2024. That includes stops in Germany, Finland, Italy, France and Hungary.

Most recently, they performed a pair of gigs at Croke Park in Dublin. According to Set List FM , here’s what they brought to the stage at their last concert on Sept. 2:

Act I: Planets

01.) “Higher Power” 02.) “Adventure of a Lifetime” 03.) “Paradise” 04.) “The Scientist” 05.) “Ride On” (Jimmy MacCarthy cover) Act II: Moons

06.) “Viva la Vida”

07.) “Hymn for the Weekend” 08.) “Don’t Forget Me” (Maggie Rogers cover) 09.) “In My Place” 10.) “Yellow” Act III: Stars

11.) “Human Heart” 12.) “People of the Pride” 13.) “Clocks” 14.) “WE PRAY” 15.) “Infinity Sign” 16.) “Something Just Like This” (The Chainsmokers cover) 17.) “My Universe” 18.) “A Sky Full of Stars” Act IV: Home

19.) “Sunrise” 20.) “Sparks” 21.) “The Jumbotron Song” 22.) “Crazy World” (Aslan cover) 23.) “Fix You” 24.) “GOOD FEELiNGS” 25.) “feelslikeimfallinginlove” 26.) “ALL MY LOVE”

Coldplay new music

Prior to the release of “Moon Music,” Coldplay has released a pair of singles as noted above.

First is the exuberant “feelslikeimfallinginlove, ” which somehow evokes the magic of the early days of a relationship where everything is weightless. Coldplay’s pulsing synths and Martin’s soaring vocals will make you feel as if you’re floating on a cloud in just four short minutes.

On Sept. 6, the group teamed up with Little Simz, Burna Boy, Elyanna and TINI for the strings-heavy bop “WE PRAY.” Make sure to stick around to the very end here; at the three-minute mark, all the artists come together for an infectious singalong that’s sure to leave a smile on your face.

Huge stars on tour in 2024

If a trip across the pond to see Chris Martin next year isn’t in the cards for you, we’ve got your back.

Here are five huge artists that may be headed to a venue significantly closer to you than London these next few months.

•  David Gray

•  Imagine Dragons

•  Twenty One Pilots

Who else is on the road? Take a look at our list of the 50 biggest concert tours in 2024 to find the show for you.

Why you should trust ‘Post Wanted’ by the New York Post

This article was written by Matt Levy , New York Post live events reporter. Levy stays up-to-date on all the latest tour announcements from your favorite musical artists and comedians, as well as Broadway openings, sporting events and more live shows – and finds great ticket prices online. Since he started his tenure at the Post in 2022, Levy has reviewed a Bruce Springsteen concert and interviewed Melissa Villaseñor of SNL fame, to name a few. Please note that deals can expire, and all prices are subject to change.

Find anything you save across the site in your account

Russia’s Espionage War in the Arctic

It was polar winter, one long night. The lakes had frozen in the Far North, and the foxes and the grouse had shed their brown fur and feathers in favor of Arctic white. To survive the months of snow and ice, predators resort to camouflage and deception. But so do their prey.

This piece was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

In the small town of Kirkenes—in the northeastern corner of Norway, six miles from the Russian border—the regional counterintelligence chief, Johan Roaldsnes, peered out his office window at the fjord below. There were eight Russian fishing trawlers docked outside, housing at least six hundred Russian sailors.

The phone rang. The caller was a government employee who worked at the local port. It was not uncommon for Russian trawlers to stop in Kirkenes, but some of these were not among the usual ships. One of them, a fish-processing vessel named Arka-33, had docked weeks earlier and hadn’t left.

“Seems a bit much,” the caller said.

“Might be,” Roaldsnes replied. Uncertainty was his profession.

He walked out of his office, into the cold, and past the church from which the town had taken its name: Kirkenes, “church on the promontory.” There were two clocks on the spire. They showed different times, neither of which was correct.

It was late December, 2022, almost a year since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Roaldsnes had not seen the sun in a month; it wouldn’t rise again for another. Locals call these months the mørketid —the dark time. Most of the time, you can’t see what’s around you, even if you know that it’s there.

Arka-33 was larger than many buildings in town. Before docking, its captain had given only the required twenty-four hours’ notice to Norwegian port authorities. The ship belongs to a Russian crab-fishing company whose C.E.O., according to the OpenSanctions database, used to run at least two private security companies. His wife—who was previously listed as C.E.O.—is a member of the Russian parliament and appears on various sanctions lists. As Roaldsnes drove through the dock yard, he noted that Arka-33 was moored in a position that is used by the Norwegian military’s primary electronic-intelligence-collection vessel when it stops in Kirkenes.

“What’s the new threat that we don’t see?” Johan Roaldsnes, the head of counterintelligence for the region, asked.

A fishing boat was no longer just a fishing boat, in the eyes of Norwegian authorities. That summer, the Russian government had declared that commercial vessels could be co-opted by the military for any purpose. The fjords of Kirkenes open up to the Barents Sea, just a few miles from where the Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet has engaged in espionage and nuclear-war preparations since the earliest days of the Cold War. Locals in Kirkenes, a town of thirty-five hundred people, noticed that Russian fishermen were younger than those who had come before the war in Ukraine, and that they sometimes did physical-training exercises on the decks of their ships.

Russian sailors carry handwritten seafarer passports. “You don’t actually know who is on board,” Roaldsnes told me. “If you do a deep dive on a bunch of sailors, you will eventually find somebody linked to the Northern Fleet.”

Recently, crew on a vessel that had been associated with the destruction of subsea communications cables had steered a motorboat into restricted waters near a Norwegian Army garrison. Were they testing their equipment, or the speed of the Norwegian response? A search of two trawlers had revealed radios that could tune into military frequencies which are used by the Northern Fleet. I asked Roaldsnes whether the trawlers were effectively functioning as intelligence vessels. “No, they’re fishing vessels,” he said. “Well . . .” He winced, and rephrased his assessment: “They fish.”

For the past few years, civilian life in northern Norway has been under constant, low-grade attack. Russian hackers have targeted small municipalities and ports with phishing scams, ransomware, and other forms of cyber warfare, and individuals travelling as tourists have been caught photographing sensitive defense and communications infrastructure. Norway’s domestic-intelligence service, the P.S.T., has warned of the threat of sabotage to Norwegian train lines, and to gas facilities that supply energy to much of Europe. A few months ago, someone cut a vital communications cable running to a Norwegian Air Force base. “We’ve seen what we believe to be continuous mapping of our critical infrastructure,” Roaldsnes told me. “I see it as continuous war preparation.”

The aberrant trawlers left as quietly as they had come. Roaldsnes had spent Christmas privately agonizing over the possibility that there was a special-forces unit scattered among the ships. Was this a dry run for a potential attack? Or was the threat mostly imaginary—a “wilderness of mirrors,” as a former C.I.A. counterintelligence chief once described such things?

After a decade in the P.S.T., Roaldsnes considered it professionally important to never fully make up his mind. Counterintelligence, he later told me, “is like playing tennis without seeing your opponent or whether it’s actually a ball being served to you. It might behave as a ball. But, when you get close, it’s an orange.”

Most Western governments do not appear to think of themselves as being at war with Russia. Russia, however, is at war with the West. “That’s for sure—we are saying that openly,” the Russian representative to the United Nations recently declared. Most attacks are deliberately murky, and difficult to attribute. They are acts of so-called hybrid warfare, designed to subdue the enemy without fighting. The strategy appears to be to push the limits of what Russia can get away with—to subvert, to sabotage, to hack, to destabilize, to instill fear—and to paralyze Western governments by hinting at even more aggressive tactics. “They do it because they can do it,” an air-traffic controller told me, of an electronic-warfare attack that imperils civilian aviation. “Then they deny everything, and they threaten you, saying that, if you don’t stop accusing them of what you know they’re doing, bad things will happen to you.”

Ever since Russia annexed Crimea, in 2014, its military and intelligence services have been experimenting with hybrid warfare and influence operations in Kirkenes, treating the area as “a laboratory,” as the regional police chief put it to me. Some attacks were almost imperceptible at first; others disrupted everyday life and caused division among locals. To understand what was happening in her district, she started reading Sun Tzu.

Then, in early 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. The conversations inside Roaldsnes’s office, in Kirkenes, took on an existential tone, because Vladimir Putin has shown himself to be willing to risk it all over relatively small, strategically important areas. The Article 5 policy of collective defense states that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all. But would the United States engage in thermonuclear war over a sparsely populated swath of Arctic Norway?

Countries throughout Europe now acknowledge that their people and infrastructure are under ceaseless attack. Yet each incident is, by itself, below the threshold that would require a military response or trigger Article 5. In recent months, agents of Russian intelligence are believed to have assassinated a defector in Spain, planted explosives near a pipeline in Germany, carried out arson attacks all over the Continent, and sabotaged subsea cables and rail lines. A Russian operative injured himself in Paris while preparing explosives for a terrorist attack on a hardware store, and U.S. intelligence discovered a Russian plot to assassinate the C.E.O. of one of Europe’s largest arms manufacturers. Poland’s interior minister said, “We are facing a foreign state that is conducting hostile and—in military parlance—kinetic action on Polish territory.” Every European country that borders Russia is preparing for a wider war in the event of a Russian victory in Ukraine. Poland and the Baltics are digging trenches at their borders and fortifying them, often with antitank obstacles known as “dragon’s teeth.” Finland cast aside seventy years of neutrality and nonalignment to join NATO ; Sweden cast aside two hundred.

Russia’s low-grade attacks are accompanied by threats of nuclear annihilation, both by Kremlin officials and by pundits on state television. In May, the Russian military carried out an exercise in which it practiced initiating a tactical nuclear war. In the context of nuclear escalation, Kirkenes is in one of the most strategically sensitive regions on earth. The other side of the border is the Kola Peninsula, which is filled with closed military towns and airfields, nuclear-weapons storage facilities, and nuclear-submarine ports. “Within a radius of, let’s say, two hundred kilometres of this table, there could be a thousand nuclear warheads,” Thomas Nilsen, a journalist in Kirkenes, told me, over a dinner of reindeer and arctic char. Russia is also using the Barents Sea for research and development of new delivery systems for nuclear weapons, including a subsea nuclear torpedo that could flood a coastal city with a radioactive tsunami, and a nuclear-powered cruise missile with global reach.

“The Kola Peninsula is their strategic security against the West,” Roaldsnes told me. “The whole Russian plan is that, if things really heat up with NATO , they need to create a buffer,” to preserve the capability to carry out nuclear strikes. “That means the ability to control their closest neighboring territory”—the region that includes Kirkenes—“and control access to the waters, to prevent anyone from getting close.” The goal is “the ability to deny access to the Barents Sea,” to protect the Northern Fleet.

But the control of territory is not only a matter of weapons systems. It’s also about people. And here, at the point of contact between NATO and Russia’s nuclear stronghold, it seems that the Kremlin is quietly waging a parallel battle for public sentiment in a small fishing town, geographically isolated from the rest of Norway and the West. As Sun Tzu writes, the path to victory is to win first, and then go to war.

In March, 2022, a few weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, I set off for northwestern Norway to attend a NATO military exercise called Cold Response, in which some thirty thousand troops were practicing Arctic warfare. The exercise involved a staged invasion of Norway, with the Nordic nations defending the area as soldiers from the U.S., Britain, France, and other NATO countries attempted an amphibious assault from the sea. Although no one officially acknowledged it, each country was practicing its likely role in the event of a Russian invasion—and sending a message about NATO unity. “What we are trying to do here is to make sure that there will never be a war in Norway,” one of the top commanders told me. “And the deterrence part of the operation is not really effective if we are the only ones who know it.”

Link copied

The Russians were invited to send observers to the exercise, partly as a gesture of transparency. They declined, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. During the exercise, men with Eastern European accents reportedly tried to buy Norwegian military I.D.s from drunk conscripts at a bar. (During another NATO exercise, a “tourist” who had logged into his hotel’s Wi-Fi appeared to have been sent by the Russian security services to help in the deployment of a cyberattack.) The paucity of accommodations in remote Arctic towns makes them ripe for spontaneous encounters with high-value targets and their devices; once, as I was having a reindeer burger at a crowded hotel bar, the heads of both the Norwegian and the Swedish Armed Forces brushed past my chair.

One morning, a Norwegian Army spokesman led me through a few checkpoints to a tent, where Pål Berglund, the commander of Norway’s Northern Brigade, was changing his socks. For almost two weeks, he had been living in the back of an infantry vehicle, from which he was running the Norwegian defense. Berglund’s brigade is among the northernmost ground forces on earth. As such, his soldiers were also training allies to endure the challenges of Arctic conditions: cables freeze, lubricants harden, guns jam, vehicles get stuck in the snow. “If you do everything wrong and you’re in the jungle, you will still survive a week or so,” Berglund said. “But if you do everything wrong in the Arctic, it’s a matter of hours before you will freeze to death.”

At a gas station, I ran into the commander of the battalion that guards Norway’s border with Russia. He invited me to Kirkenes, and a few weeks later I travelled there for the first time. It was mid-April, and the air was well above freezing—unseasonably warm for two hundred and fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle. Rain pelted the windows on the bus from the airport into town. One of the company commanders, Fredrik Hodnefjell, arranged to take me on a patrol along the Pasvik River, which marks the border with Russia. He’d originally planned for us to travel on the river’s frozen surface, but it was no longer safe. The ice should have held for another couple of weeks. But the Arctic is warming four times faster than anywhere else on earth.

Hodnefjell picked me up in town, and we drove toward the river. A road sign in both Norwegian and Russian showed that we were heading in the direction of Murmansk, Russia, home to the Northern Fleet. About ten minutes into the drive, we climbed out of the car. Before us were two border posts, four metres apart: yellow and black on the Norwegian side; red and green, with a silver Russian coat of arms, on the other. In the distance, we could see the onion dome of a Russian Orthodox church.

The area was completely silent. There were no signs of people, no animal tracks in the snow. “We are being watched now,” Hodnefjell said.

“By the Russians?” I asked.

“By our own.”

Later that afternoon, we climbed onto a snowmobile and set out into the pine forest, to visit a watchtower that overlooks the Russian town of Nikel, named for the metal its residents once mined. Huge smelting towers burst through the tree line. Not long ago, their fumes polluted the air on both sides of the river, but now the mine is closed. We climbed the watchtower, where a small group of conscripts spends every hour of every day monitoring the border. One of them noted the strangeness of knowing so well what Nikel looks like without ever having been there.

Hodnefjell handed me a pair of binoculars and pointed out a collapsing concrete structure on the Russian side. Beneath it lay the site of the Kola Superdeep Borehole, a nine-inch-wide hole dug more than seven and a half miles down, in an attempt to breach the earth’s crust. The effort failed, but it represented one of the final superlatives of the Soviet Union: the deepest hole on earth.

I returned to the region several times in the next two years, culminating in a three-month stay that encompassed the mørketid . My time in the Arctic coincided with almost constant military activity, by land, air, and sea. The Finns practiced taking off and landing fighter jets on remote roads, and planting explosives along the routes to Russia; the Norwegians trained Ukrainian special forces in unpopulated fjords. NATO held its first exercises with Sweden and Finland as member states, and the Americans docked nuclear-powered attack submarines in a Norwegian Arctic port. (Russian fishing trawlers, meanwhile, loitered in the port and reported “engine trouble,” as if looking for a pretext to get close to the submarines.)

To better understand the military preparations, I traversed roughly seventy kilometres of the border—mostly in snowshoes, occasionally in boots or on skis—and bunked with conscripts in remote outposts whose walls were coated in ice. The border region is a place where everyday life is imbued with geopolitical significance, where the stakes are visible in what little infrastructure exists amid the vast, unyielding wilderness: radar balls, listening stations, relay towers, a microwave-communications network for the military. On a patrol last November, to monitor the border in the mountains overlooking Russia’s Pechenga valley, two conscripts and I experienced total whiteout, and could hardly distinguish ground from sky. It was just freezing whiteness, minus twenty degrees Celsius—a void. Shortly after midday, everything faded to blue and gray, then to black.

The conscript in front of me, Jørgen Benningstad, led the way; the one behind me, Nikolai Thorsen, dragged supplies in a sled, and stopped every thirty minutes to call in our status and coördinates over an encrypted radio.

After nearly three hours, we arrived at an empty military cabin that had no water or electricity, only a small wood-burning stove. Benningstad and Thorsen took turns in a lookout room—perhaps four feet by six—which had a telescope pointed at Russia, about a hundred metres down the hill. There was a small table that held their radios and a night-vision monocular. But the weather made optical surveillance pointless, so Thorsen opened the window and started listening instead. “We can’t see anyone better than we would hear them,” he said. He stood, motionless, head out the window, neck craning, an ear toward the border line. The Arctic silence was so profound that we could hear the noise of a car’s tires several kilometres away, in Russia.

Thorsen and Benningstad swapped positions every fifteen minutes—ears freezing out the window or warming by the stove. After eight shifts, they put out the fire and packed up their survival packs, and we set off into the black. I never saw any Russians from the border line, except as specks in watchtowers. But each patrol amounts to an assertion of sovereignty, a form of signalling: Look at me looking at you.

Many of the world’s most closely guarded secrets concern the capacity of governments to destroy their enemies while denying them the ability to retaliate. Perhaps the most important of these are the precise locations of nuclear submarines. Russian submarines are designed for stealth, and carry as many as sixteen long-range ballistic missiles that can be launched underwater. The most advanced of these missiles weigh around eighty thousand pounds and carry several thermonuclear warheads, each of which can generate an explosion many times larger than that of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. A single “boomer,” as these submarines are called, can turn a nation into a radioactive wasteland. They are the Russian military’s ultimate investment and security blanket, and their protection is its ultimate priority.

Russia spans eleven time zones and has the longest Arctic Ocean coastline in the world. The Northern Fleet is the country’s primary nuclear deterrent, but its submarines are “prisoners of geography,” as the author Tim Marshall has put it. The fleet’s home base, in the Kola Peninsula, is within range of Norwegian signals-intelligence stations, but it can’t be moved farther east, because the Barents Sea is the only part of the Russian Arctic that has ice-free ports year-round. With each trip to the Atlantic, the submarines must traverse the shallow water of the Barents Sea, making them vulnerable to tracking by NATO forces.

Last June, I joined a U.S. Navy crew for a mission aboard a P-8 Poseidon, one of the world’s most advanced submarine-hunting aircraft. We took off from Iceland and flew northeast, toward the Kola Peninsula. A little more than two hours into the flight, the lead pilot, Sandeep Arakali—a twenty-eight-year-old aerospace engineer with two degrees from Stanford—peered out his cockpit window and spotted a U.S. Air Force stratotanker to our right. It was time for an air-to-air refuelling, to maximize the time spent on the mission. Both planes, flying at more than five hundred miles an hour, had arrived at these exact coördinates, over international waters, at the appointed minute.

Arakali approached the stratotanker from behind and from slightly below. The tanker filled the P-8’s cockpit windows—four huge jet engines, spanning my peripheral vision. Arakali leaned over the controls and craned his neck upward. His hands shook wildly, compensating for forces that I could not see; in relation to the stratotanker, the P-8 seemed perfectly still. A young woman, lying prone in the stratotanker’s tail, stared back at him, her face framed by a small triangular window, as she guided a fuel line into the top of the P-8. There was a rush of liquid above us—two tons per minute. Then the line detached, and Arakali descended over the Barents Sea.

To hunt submarines, P-8 crews generally fly at low altitude—sometimes below five hundred feet. The plane resembles a Boeing 737, but behind the cockpit there are only two large windows, for photographing warships, auxiliary vessels, and other objects of interest. The rest of the plane is a closed tube, filled with surveillance equipment and computer banks. Sonar buoys are dropped into the water below, creating a three-dimensional sound map of the underwater area—including any submarines passing through it—which is then shared with NATO ships and submarines, to continuously track the Russians after the P-8 returns to base.

That night, though, the intelligence-collection targets were not submarines but Russian ships: a Northern Fleet destroyer; a Russian-intelligence patrol vessel; a Soviet-era “hydrographic research” ship, operated by the Russian Navy. They hid under rain clouds and storm cover as best they could, making it difficult for the P-8 to get close. Arakali and his co-pilots flew a thousand feet above the ocean’s surface. The electronic- and acoustic-warfare operators kept their eyes glued to their screens. “With each pass, we aim to maximize the surface area for the sensors and other collection equipment,” Arakali told me.

A Norwegian frigate and a British destroyer were also patrolling these waters. When the P-8’s reconnaissance mission was complete, the team did a flyby, as a show of support for its NATO allies. We put on life jackets, standard practice when the plane descends below a thousand feet. The youngest pilot on board, a twenty-six-year-old lieutenant named Rusty Joyce, manned the controls. Almost all of the crew had mustaches, but Joyce’s was so wispy that you could see it only up close. He buzzed the warships at three hundred feet, and banked hard for another pass. I sat by the window, watching ocean swells froth past the tip of the wing.

A Russian operator radioed the flight crew on the public emergency-radio frequency. “Zemlya, Zemlya, Zemlya—Delta Echo Ivory Eagle,” the operator said, using call signs and protocols that had been established during the Cold War. The P-8 crew radioed back, acknowledging their presence off Kola. Sometimes Russian fighter jets escort P-8s farther from their shores.

Later, an air-traffic controller at the Kirkenes airport told me that he’d heard the chatter between the Russians and the P-8, just off the coast. “For us, this is normal,” he said. He had grown up in Kirkenes in the nineteen-sixties. Back then, Russian nuclear submarines occasionally sneaked into the Varanger Fjord, just outside of town. The anomalous period was that of post-Soviet peace, he said. Then, in 2017, a Russian electronic-warfare unit set up a G.P.S. jammer in the mountains facing Kirkenes, causing at least one plane to nearly crash. The jamming was sporadic at first; now it takes place almost every day. The air-traffic controller sighed. “We’re back to the Cold War,” he said. “And I think it’s going to be like this for the rest of my life.”

Johan Roaldsnes occasionally hosts gatherings for current and former intelligence officers at an abandoned police station that faces Russia, a short drive from Kirkenes, on the banks of the Pasvik River. They drink vodka, go in a sauna, jump in the river. Retired spies often struggle with a sense of purposelessness, Roaldsnes said—cut off from the flows of intelligence and the sources they pursued for their entire careers. But they are a fount of knowledge. Until Russia annexed Crimea, the Norwegian security services did not publicly refer to the F.S.B., Russia’s largest intelligence agency, as an adversary. Then, Roaldsnes said, “you had to get in touch with your counterintelligence people from the Cold War, dust them off, gather their insights, and get back to work.”

The P.S.T. estimates that some three hundred people work at the F.S.B. directorate in Murmansk, on the other side of the border; many of them run operations in Kirkenes and the surrounding countryside, designed to probe Norwegian defenses and critical infrastructure. “They do intelligence by trawling,” Roaldsnes told me. “Quantity is their form of quality.”

Roaldsnes, the eldest of three children, was born in 1984, and grew up on a small island off the western coast of Norway. His father was a minister and his mother worked for the municipality. Roaldsnes trained as a mechanic in high school, and went on to study physics at the University of Bergen.

“When I arrived at university, I didn’t know a single soul,” he recalled. “I started to train in Brazilian jujitsu.” A fellow jujitsu fighter, an employee of the local psychiatric hospital, was recruiting young men who could restrain unruly patients. Roaldsnes is six feet three, with dark hair and an athletic build. He signed up to work at the hospital, and before long he “was involved in isolating a patient, together with two police officers,” he said. “I had never had a concept of policing—we didn’t have any police on the island where I grew up. And I was figuring out what to do with my life, so I asked them, ‘How is policing?’ And they said, ‘It’s O.K.’ ” The next morning, he applied to a police academy. “I go a lot by instinct,” he told me. “I don’t have a master plan.”

After three years at the police academy, Roaldsnes attended a career day, where he met a recruiting officer from the police in Finnmark, Norway’s second-largest and least populated province, in the Arctic northeast. Finnmark is more than twice the size of New Jersey, but it has only about seventy-five thousand residents. There are two major offshore oil fields and a handful of small towns, including Kirkenes. One of the largest employers in the province is the Norwegian military.

Roaldsnes arrived at the police station in Finnmark’s administrative center, Vadsø, in the fall of 2010. The town lies just across the Varanger Fjord from Kirkenes. It takes eight minutes to travel between them on a propeller plane, but about two and a half hours by car, tracing the perimeter of the fjord.

To Roaldsnes, the most interesting site in Vadsø was the refugee center, which had more than two hundred rooms and whose occupants accounted for roughly seventeen per cent of the town’s population. Many of them were from Afghanistan or East Africa; there were also a few Chechens. “There was a pretty high crime rate and a lot of fighting,” Roaldsnes said. “So I asked the local police chief if I could be in charge of the refugee facility, from the police side.”

Most of the issues stemmed from clashes among various ethnic groups—“challenges in different languages, dumbed down to violence,” as Roaldsnes put it. He set out to build source networks within the communities, and defused conflicts before crimes took place by enlisting people to tip him off to what was happening. The worst offenders were relocated south, and the rate of violence dropped.

Then, in 2014, a young Chechen who had been staying at the refugee center left to fight with ISIS in the Syrian war. Three other Chechens from Vadsø soon followed. It was then that Roaldsnes was recruited to work for the P.S.T. “It was all centered on Syria,” he said. “Trying to figure out what groups they were in, and whether or not they were in contact with people back home.”

The next year, ISIS was sending operatives into Europe, scattered among hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants who were coming from Africa and the Middle East. Suddenly, refugees were arriving at Storskog, the only official Norwegian-Russian border-crossing point, six miles from Kirkenes. “It started in May, with a few drips,” Roaldsnes told me. “And then it just rocketed.” Roaldsnes and others in the P.S.T. quickly sensed that “something was off.” The notion that the Arctic migrant route had developed organically didn’t fit with the realities of security in the Kola Peninsula. No one can reach Storskog from anywhere in Russia without a visa or written authorization from the F.S.B., which runs the border.

It is illegal to cross the border on foot, but migrants seemed to have been made aware of a loophole: they traversed the final few hundred metres in wheelchairs and on cheap children’s bicycles. The P.S.T. began to believe that the Russians were deliberately sending the migrants, to incite discord in the Norwegian population and to test the limits of the country’s humanitarianism. “It was kind of an uncomfortable feeling, at the beginning, to even think that the Russians were doing this on purpose—weaponizing refugees, the most vulnerable segment of society,” Roaldsnes said. The demographics of the arrivals raised questions about F.S.B. involvement. At first, there were mostly Syrians. But then, he said, “we just saw higher and higher numbers of refugees from lots of strange states coming in”—forty-seven countries in all. Stranger still, many of the arrivals spoke Russian; they had been living in Russia for years, and had local residency permits. One was in his final year of medical school.

It soon became clear that a number of the arrivals had been given intelligence tasks. Some asked “unusual questions,” Roaldsnes said; others were apparently instructed to take selfies with Norwegian police or security officials in the background.

One of them, a former government official from a country in Asia, had fled criminal charges at home. In Murmansk, he had been detained and interrogated by the F.S.B. They told him that “if he didn’t comply, or support them with a task, they would let his home country know where he was,” Roaldsnes said. The Russians told the man that, after crossing the border, he should “claim to have secrets vital to Norway, show off his government credentials from his home country, and try to get in contact with Norwegian intelligence,” Roaldsnes continued. “The objective might have been to find out how somebody ends up in a P.S.T. or military-intelligence recruitment trajectory from the migrant stream. Is there a specific house? How do they do it? How do they interview you? Do they check your cell phone?” The man was instructed to send reports back to his F.S.B. handler through unsent drafts of messages in a social-media account.

The man gave himself up at the border and told the Norwegians everything. “Based on the detailed explanation, we assessed that he was likely telling the truth,” Roaldsnes told me.

“So he confessed immediately?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “But that might be part of the plot.” The man was eventually deported to his home country.

By November, 2015, more than five thousand asylum seekers had crossed at Storskog; a hundred and ninety-six of them came in a single day. “It was minus fifteen degrees one day,” Roaldsnes recalled. Some asylum seekers were wearing so little clothing that if they weren’t let into Norway they would likely die. Eventually, the Norwegian government declared Russia a safe country for asylum seekers, and started turning people back; at last, the bicycles stopped coming.

Roaldsnes married another police officer, Synne, and in 2018 they moved to Kirkenes. She became the head of operations for the Finnmark police; he spent a few years running the intelligence-analysis section and then, about two years ago, became a regional head of the P.S.T. “It’s like playing chess every day at work, all while we have only some vague concept of the rules, and of what pieces are in play,” he said. “The important thing about intelligence work is to constantly try to evolve—what’s the new threat that we don’t see?”

Recently, the Russian security services have shifted their tactics from professional espionage to sabotage and destruction, often undertaken by disposable agents—random criminals who are recruited over Telegram and paid in cryptocurrency or cash. “The Russians no longer have any downsides to an operation being exposed,” Roaldsnes said. He sighed. “They ruined a great spy game with this stupid war.”

There was no dawn to mark the first day of 2023—no sunrise, not for another few weeks. In the Russian town of Nikel, thirty miles from Kirkenes, a young mercenary named Andrey Medvedev scaled two fences that had been constructed by the Russian security services not so much to keep Norwegians out as to keep Russians in. He wore white camouflage, and crept down to the banks of the Pasvik River. It looked to be frozen solid, but the only way to test it was to go across.

The ice held, mostly, and Medvedev dragged himself up the opposite bank, his feet and ankles sodden and numb. He pulled a bottle of vodka out of his rucksack and collapsed in exhaustion on Norwegian ground.

When Roaldsnes awoke, a few hours later, he learned that there was a strange arrival in police custody. Medvedev was the first commander of the Wagner Group—a Russian paramilitary organization—to present as a defector to the West. Medvedev told the police that he had led a Wagner unit on the front lines in Ukraine, and had witnessed battlefield atrocities committed by his comrades. One of his subordinates—a convicted murderer, who had joined the Wagner Group in return for a pardon—was executed with a sledgehammer, on camera, after the group’s leadership judged him a traitor. “Live like a dog, die like a dog,” Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, had said of the man. Now Medvedev said that he would testify against Prigozhin.

Yet Roaldsnes wondered whether Medvedev posed a counterintelligence risk. How had he managed to slip through the Kola Peninsula, one of the most highly controlled places on earth? Was he really a defector? Or was he a double agent? A fraud?

Medvedev told the police that, as he dashed across the river, he’d heard Russian border guards firing at him and the barking of a military dog sent to chase him down. But the Norwegians found no paw prints at the border, and they had detected no shots.

Kirkenes was no place for a possible defector; the Russians had too great a presence in town. The police quietly relocated Medvedev to Oslo, some nine hundred miles southwest. In the next few months, Medvedev acquired a reputation for erratic behavior and drunken fights. He also sought publicity, and gave inconsistent and unreliable accounts of his experiences in Ukraine. He even apparently tried to cross back over the border, into Russia. A theory developed among P.S.T. officers that the F.S.B.—believing that Medvedev would be a headache, and a drain on resources, for Norway—had not impeded his escape. (Medvedev could not be reached for comment.) Within the P.S.T., he became known as “the agent of chaos.” “At some point, you understand that you’re maybe chasing the loudest balls, and that makes you less able to see the sneaky ones,” Roaldsnes told me. “Two years ago, we got a lot of tips about people photographing a covert safe house,” he said. “We found out that a rare Pokémon was there,” in the augmented-reality game Pokémon Go.

In 2022, the P.S.T. arrested a Russian military-intelligence officer named Mikhail Mikushin, who was working in a research program dedicated to hybrid threats at the Arctic University of Norway, in Tromsø. He was operating undercover as José Giammaria, a Brazilian academic, and had spent several years in Canada, developing his credentials; he had even written about the threat that Russia poses to Arctic security in an article for the Canadian Naval Review . Mikushin’s arrest was unusual. Espionage is rarely prosecuted in Norway. Often, it is better to let rival services carry on using compromised sources and methods. Spies and their handlers communicate through all kinds of signals and codes—a vase in a window, a blip on the radio, a misplaced brick in a wall. Detection is difficult, but the goal in most P.S.T. operations, Roaldsnes said, is to “transform each mystery into a well-kept secret”—and then “close the doors in front of the adversary, without them being aware that we were even there.”

One of the old K.G.B. tactics that has been revived in recent years is the use of “travelling agents,” known as marshrutniki . These people are not really spies, just civilians who are recruited to complete a specific intelligence task, sometimes through extortion or the promise of cash, sometimes through an appeal to their patriotism. “Satellite photos don’t give you everything,” Roaldsnes told me. “You have to have eyes on the target.” Many marshrutniki are dual citizens, or students or businesspeople with legitimate reasons to travel. They don’t need to understand the significance of the assignment; they just have to complete it.

One morning last fall, I boarded a ferry from Kirkenes to Tromsø, a journey of about thirty-six hours along the northernmost coastline in continental Europe. The Varanger Fjord was placid leading out to the Barents Sea. A couple of hours later, I went out on the top deck—just before the small town of Vardø came into view. Only one other passenger seemed to know what would soon appear on the horizon. She was in late middle age, with brown hair, and had positioned herself in such a way that no one inside the boat could see her. I noticed that she was filming the approach to Vardø, her phone propped against the railing but hidden by her torso, which leaned forward in a faux-casual pose. I drew closer. She pulled back the phone. I saw its screen for a second: the language was Russian; the time zone read Murmansk.

Vardø is a fishing village, but its skyline is dominated by successive generations of gigantic radar systems, known as Globus I, II, and III. Officially, the Globus systems monitor “space junk.” But they have another use: they can track and calculate the trajectories of ballistic nuclear missiles. The Globus complex, though it was built by American contractors, is operated by Norway’s military-intelligence service. In the late nineties, a storm blew the cover off one of the radar balls, revealing a system that was aimed straight at the Kola Peninsula.

Russia has signalled its displeasure with the Globus systems by practicing to blow them up. In recent years, bombers have flown toward the radars in attack formations, peeling off just before crossing into Norwegian airspace. Hackers have infiltrated the municipal council’s internal e-mail system, and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church have applied to build a chapel in Vardø, despite no local demand for services.

Now, as the Globus balls loomed ahead of us, passengers started streaming onto the deck. The woman abandoned her surreptitious approach and held up her cell phone, taking a video for at least ten minutes—the whole route to the Globus complex, and the path into the quiet harbor behind it.

After we left Vardø, the likely marshrutnik sat alone, with no luggage. Late that night, we reached a small village called Båtsfjord—the only place besides Kirkenes and Tromsø where Russian fishing boats are still allowed to dock. She tried to get off the ferry, but the staff wouldn’t let her, because there were no scheduled departures.

Another day passed. She seemed to have not prepared for this—she had no change of clothes. When we arrived in Tromsø, close to midnight, she disembarked, wrapped in a blanket stolen from the ship.

T he war in Ukraine is more than a thousand miles south of Kirkenes, and yet it imbues every aspect of the town’s identity, economy, and future. On the day of the invasion, the mayor cried. Russians and their families make up between five and ten per cent of the population, and until recently the town depended on cross-border trade. Roaldsnes could see the war in struggling local businesses; in the layoffs at the ship-repair factory, one of the largest employers in town, after E.U. sanctions prevented work on Russian trawlers; in the despondency and bewilderment of schoolteachers, sports coaches, and politicians, who had spent the past three decades building connections with their Russian counterparts. Many of them had believed that there was something unique and almost borderless about Arctic regional coöperation. Geopolitics was a matter for the capitals, they said; up here, the motto was “High North, low tensions.” Life in the Arctic is difficult enough without worrying about the nuclear warheads just over the horizon. But sentiment had started to change. And when the narrative shifts in Kirkenes, so does the behavior of nations.

Kirkenes was originally a company town, built in the early nineteen-hundreds to exploit an iron-ore deposit. The local mining company employed fifteen hundred people at its peak, but it languished in the eighties, and, with few other economic prospects, the population atrophied. Then the Soviet Union collapsed, opening up the possibility of establishing ties and trade with the nearest city: Murmansk.

“In the months after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Murmansk was total chaos,” Thomas Nilsen, the journalist, told me. Soldiers went months without wages; some desperate civilians fainted from hunger or froze. Russia’s Northern Fleet was so destitute that it rented out one of its nuclear submarines to transport vegetables to a port in Siberia, potatoes loaded into the missile compartment. “Everything collapsed—everything,” Nilsen, who was freelancing in Murmansk at the time, said. “The currency, the markets, the food-supply chain. Even I, with my foreign currency, had to spend much of my day trying to find food.”

Throughout the nineties, Nilsen researched the environmental ravages of industrial mining and poorly managed nuclear waste in the Kola Peninsula. The region accounted for almost twenty per cent of all nuclear reactors on earth; now it was scattered with decaying tankers and barges loaded with spent nuclear fuel. “There were a hundred and thirty nuclear-powered submarines that had been taken out of operation, and they posed the threat of what you could absolutely call a Chernobyl in slow motion,” he told me. One of the Northern Fleet’s submarines had sunk, in 1989, and hadn’t been salvaged; its reactor lay at the bottom of the Norwegian Sea, along with two torpedoes with nuclear warheads, corroding in salt water. Nuclear waste, marked “for scrapping,” was left outside of shipyards, exposed to weather.

But Kirkenes was suddenly alive. “I came back here for summer vacation in ’92, when the border opened,” a local air-ambulance pilot, Tor Ivar Dahl Pettersen, told me. “It was just the Wild West, and the police had no control. Some Russians set up a bordello down in the industrial area, and everybody knew about it. The ships came in from Russia, and they were selling anything to anyone who wanted it. Cigarettes and vodka, mostly, but you could buy anything but a tank.” He laughed. The Russians “would never want to go back to that again, because it must have been the most depressing moment in their lives. They went from being a superpower to being the poorest men anywhere. And all dignity was gone. They were offering up their wives just to get money for food.”

The newspaper in Kirkenes printed instructions for donating to the soup kitchen in Nikel. A Norwegian former border inspector, Frode Berg, told me that his Russian counterparts were so ill-equipped that in winter, when the temperature was minus thirty-five degrees, they wore sneakers. “We bought them food, and various things for their wives—fabrics and sewing materials, so that they could make clothes,” Berg said. “We’d take them to civilian shops and buy them green jackets. They were very happy. We helped them a lot.”

But it is not clear that the Russians perceived such gestures as they were intended. “The worn-out phrase ‘We feel sorry for Russia’ comes automatically,” a Russian journalist wrote, after a trip to Norway. “Every Russian-speaking person is apparently to be interrogated: Is it true that there is hunger in your country?” Former K.G.B. officers and their families were suddenly reliant on the good will of a mining and reindeer-herding community in one of Norway’s poorest and least developed districts.

In the center of Kirkenes, there is a bronze bust of the late Thorvald Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian minister of defense and foreign affairs, whose son is the current head of NATO . After the fall of the Soviet Union, he led an initiative to unite the business, cultural, and educational interests of Arctic Europe. Norway established an entity in Kirkenes called the Barents Secretariat, to fund projects with such titles as To Russia with Love. “It was about sport, cultural exchange, music, bands going across from one country to another, choir, singing, environmental projects—lots of activities,” Harald Sunde, a member of the municipal council, told me.

Russia opened a consulate in Kirkenes, and local Norwegian officials rushed to revive friendship agreements that had been signed in the late Soviet years with the district of Pechenga and with Severomorsk, a closed military town that serves as headquarters of the Northern Fleet. “That was a strange one,” Sunde said. “It was a friendship agreement with a municipality that you cannot visit.”

For the next two decades, relations bloomed. Norwegians drove into Russia for cheap haircuts, alcohol, and fuel; Russians came to Kirkenes to buy diapers, appliances, and luxury goods. The Kirkenes hockey team joined a Russian league; the Norwegian and Russian border guards held an annual soccer match. “Scandinavian historians, together with Russian colleagues, were willing to narrate the history of our northernmost regions as this kind of romantic idea of a place that transcends borders and countries and time,” Kari Aga Myklebost, the Barents Chair in Russian Studies at the Arctic University of Norway, told me. “Even though the Barents Region is a political construct from 1993.”

In 2012, Vladimir Putin signed into law new limits on the freedom of expression. “That resulted in many of the Russian N.G.O.s that were working with Norway to be branded as ‘foreign agents,’ ” the term the Kremlin uses to stigmatize and oppress civil society, Nilsen said. “Environmental groups, human-rights groups, youth groups, Indigenous peoples’ groups—pretty much every group that was being supported by the Barents Secretariat faced that risk.”

Nilsen and his colleague Atle Staalesen were employed by the Secretariat, which published their bilingual English and Russian news Web site, the Barents Observer. But, in 2014, when Nilsen wrote a column condemning Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the Russian consul-general in Kirkenes at the time, Mikhail Noskov, called the Observer a destructive force in Norwegian-Russian relations. The F.S.B. had repeatedly complained about the Observer to Norwegian authorities. Now an official for the Secretariat asked Nilsen to stop writing about Crimea; he refused, and was subsequently fired. (The Secretariat contests this version of events.) Staalesen quit soon afterward. “The Barents Observer was effectively shut down by the Norwegian government, at the behest of the Russian government,” Staalesen told me. “It was very symptomatic of what was to come.”

“In order to coöperate, you have to turn a blind eye to realities,” a former high-school principal, who spent decades working on cross-border collaborations, told me. “And, from 2014 onward, we had the sense that the security services controlled our Russian partners.” Increasingly, many Norwegians’ Russian contacts weren’t ordinary businessmen—they were officers or proxies of the intelligence apparatus, and they were using the ties between the two countries to turn Norwegians into assets.

In January, a Norwegian man in the district of East Finnmark agreed to meet me at three-thirty in the morning—the night of polar night. I had heard that he was an F.S.B. informant, working under duress. At first, the man repeatedly denied the allegations. Then I told him that I wasn’t guessing; my source was another person from the region who had ended up in F.S.B. custody.

“Then you already know,” he said. “They use any means they can.”

The man had been investigated by Norwegian authorities, who discovered evidence of crimes on his hard drive. The police informed their Russian counterparts, since the man routinely travelled to Russia, and asked for assistance in investigating his activities on the other side. “Of course, when they had this information in Russia, I was called into the immigration office,” the man told me. “They showed the documents from the Norwegian police. And then they said, ‘O.K., we can use this to arrest you, and put you in jail.’ ” The only way out was to coöperate with the F.S.B. “They forced me to sign a contract with them,” he said. The contract was in Russian, which he couldn’t read. But they assigned him a code name, and instructed him to go back to East Finnmark to collect the names of people who worked for the P.S.T.

Since then, the man had been called in to meet with the F.S.B. at least half a dozen times. “They were pushing me all the time,” he said. “Could I get more information?” His work for the F.S.B. exposed him to the risk of prosecution for espionage in Norway. But he had family ties to Russia, and kept going back and forth. He became consumed by paranoia, turning on loud fans to prevent possible microphones from capturing conversations, even with his wife. “It was fucking stressful,” he told me. “I started drinking more, and drinking more.”

Some Norwegians have been compromised in banyas or brothels and then extorted. Others have faced pressure to facilitate corruption and bribes. In one case, a Norwegian businessman claimed to have received an explosive device through a window of his office, in Murmansk, apparently as an inducement to sign over a controlling share of his company. “If your business becomes big enough, the mafia takes over,” a senior military-intelligence officer in Kirkenes told me. “If it becomes even more successful, then the F.S.B. takes over. And then you’re in big, big trouble.”

Another local who ended up in the sway of the F.S.B. was Frode Berg, the border inspector. In 1992, he befriended a man named Anatoly Vozniuk, who served as a Russian border inspector and interpreter. “Everyone liked him,” Berg told me. “He was full of jokes, always smiling.” Vozniuk usually kept a bottle of vodka in his backpack, and when they were alone in the forest he would pull it out and offer some to Berg. “Other Russian officers, if they did the same things that Anatoly was doing, after a short time we’d never see them again,” Berg said. But Vozniuk “was friends with special people—with Russian generals, with colonels,” Berg recalled. “He knew many people in the government in Murmansk.”

During the next decade,the two men became “best friends.” “I called him ‘the monkey,’ ” Berg said, laughing. “I’d be walking in the forest, and I’d hear a chicken clucking at me. And it was him! We would work all day, then sit and eat together, and speak about everything.” Vozniuk would take out the vodka, “and we didn’t go home before it was empty.”

By the early two-thousands, Vozniuk was driving Berg into Russia and introducing him to regional politicians and senior military and intelligence officers in the Kola Peninsula. “He was lifting me up to another level in Russia,” Berg said. “We were meeting different people in the banyas—everyone who had an important position.” When Russian officials visited Kirkenes, Berg was often summoned for drinks. The governor of Murmansk once brought Berg a small statue of a silver rocket, he recalled, “and, when you turned the top, there was a bottle of vodka inside.”

Before long, counterintelligence officers at the P.S.T. concluded that Vozniuk was targeting men like Berg as assets for the F.S.B. “It was always ‘Anatoly, Anatoly, Anatoly,’ ” Berg said. He rolled his eyes.

Vozniuk was taking Berg into restricted military areas, giving him tours of the border stations and of surveillance towers that looked into Norway. Vozniuk never brought him into areas of acute secrecy—submarine ports, military bases. But he made Berg feel like a V.I.P. Then Vozniuk started asking for the names of P.S.T. officers. Berg didn’t see a problem. Vozniuk had already seen the faces of certain officers at official meetings—he just didn’t necessarily know all of their names.

Around 2010, Vozniuk was promoted to serve as the official F.S.B. representative to Norway. I asked Berg whether he suspects that Vozniuk’s promotion was a reward for his success in eliciting information from him. “Yeah, from me and from other people,” he said. “They put it together—all the information that he collected.”

Berg’s story was not done. Shortly after Russia annexed Crimea, Norway’s military-intelligence service recruited Vasily Zemlyakov, an engineer at a shipyard that maintained nuclear submarines for the Northern Fleet. The deal was simple: cash for secrets. Zemlyakov instructed the service to send the money to the home of his cousin Natalya, in Moscow.

Whatever the P.S.T.’s concerns about Berg and his relationship with Vozniuk, the military-intelligence service decided that his routine jaunts across the border made him a suitable courier. In the next three years, Berg made several trips to Russia, and mailed cash and memory cards to Natalya’s address. Berg claims that he didn’t know what the operation was about—he just did as he was told. In return, top-secret files on the Northern Fleet’s strategic nuclear submarines were conveyed to Norway. But the sender was not Zemlyakov, who was in fact working as a double agent. It was the F.S.B.

In December, 2017, Berg made another trip to Moscow. When he stepped out of his hotel, two men grabbed him and brought him to F.S.B. headquarters, a couple of blocks away.

Berg was taken to an isolation cell in Lefortovo Prison, Russia’s notorious detention center for political prisoners, critics, poets, and spies. He recalls being questioned by F.S.B. officers sixteen times. Since Berg didn’t speak more than “vodka Russian,” as he put it, the service brought in an interpreter: his old friend Anatoly Vozniuk.

Berg was charged with espionage, but Vozniuk tried to convince him that he didn’t need independent legal representation. “Take the F.S.B. lawyer,” he said. When Berg opted instead for a well-known attorney for political prisoners, Vozniuk folded his arms and said, “Our friendship is over.” (Vozniuk could not be reached for comment.)

Berg was held for a year and a half before being found guilty of espionage and sentenced to fourteen years in a penal colony. He was exchanged in a spy swap soon afterward. (The Norwegian military-intelligence agency declined to comment.) When I met him in Kirkenes, five years after his release, he handed me a stack of Russian court documents detailing the F.S.B.’s Zemlyakov operation. But it seemed as if the thing that bothered him most about his ordeal was that Vozniuk hadn’t been joking when he’d said their friendship was over. “I tried writing an e-mail to him, and calling,” Berg said. “But Anatoly has changed his number.”

After breaking with the Barents Secretariat, Thomas Nilsen and Atle Staalesen relaunched the Observer as an independent entity. “We were the only Nordic media outlet to publish in the Russian language,” Nilsen said. “We had thousands and thousands of readers in Russia, because people could read the things here that they couldn’t find in other places.”

Their reporting has shown that, for at least the past decade, the Kremlin has been exploiting the Barents coöperation arrangements for intelligence purposes. In some cases, the F.S.B. used cultural projects as cover to send intelligence agents into Norway. But the larger effort has been to gradually establish the narrative that the people of East Finnmark owe their freedom—and perhaps also their land and their history—to Russia. The F.S.B., operating through various cover organizations, has spent decades engaging in ideological subversion in Kirkenes, rooted in the manipulation of local history, in order to make the region more friendly to Russia. “You can use this area to create chaos,” Roaldsnes told me.

It was in this context that Roaldsnes decided to come forward and describe his work—a rare instance of an active-duty counterintelligence officer going public. “One of my fears is that you have a level of intelligence failure in the F.S.B.’s foreign department that says that this region is a good subject to create a crisis for NATO ,” Roaldsnes said. He recalled the Russian services’ misreading of Ukraine—their belief that it would take only three days to capture Kyiv, and that many Ukrainians would welcome the Russian Army as a liberating force. That intelligence failure stemmed from the tendency of the Russian security apparatus to report what it thinks the Kremlin leadership wants to hear. He told me, “I’m engaging in kind of an active form of counterintelligence now—to not give any leeway, and to be a bit outspoken about this threat and how it materializes.”

The Russian narrative begins around five hundred years ago, when a marauding Russian bandit named Mitrofan experienced a sudden change of heart. After a life of robbing and killing, he was ordered by God to “go to a land that is not promised and not useful,” as the Russian Orthodox Church later put it. He gave up alcohol and violence, tied a rope around his waist, and walked north, to the valleys and fjords where the Pasvik River spills into the Barents Sea. Mitrofan converted many of the native Sámi people to Christianity, and built a few modest wooden chapels. In death, he became known as St. Tryphon.

In 1826, when Norwegian and Russian officials set out to draw the border between the two nations, they decided that the natural boundary lay in the river. But the remnants of one of St. Tryphon’s chapels, the Church of Boris and Gleb, were just on the Norwegian side of the river in South Varanger, which is now part of Finnmark. The Russians insisted on carving out a small postage stamp of land and designating it as Orthodox—and therefore Russian—territory.

Then, a couple of years before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alexei Badanin, the head of the Orthodox Church on the Kola Peninsula, called into question the legitimacy of the border line—not just the postage stamp but the entire thing. “South Varanger—this is our Orthodox land,” he said. “It was given up in 1826 by unscrupulous officials.” St. Tryphon had built another small chapel about fifteen miles west of Kirkenes. Should that be in Russia, too?

Badanin is a former Northern Fleet commander who in the early two-thousands began dedicating himself to the study and veneration of St. Tryphon. Some years into his religious journey, he took the name Mitrofan, too. Like his namesake, Badanin has spent lots of time on the Norwegian side of the border—meeting local dignitaries and spreading St. Tryphon’s teachings. But some of his behavior struck people as out of synch with his role as a priest: in 2019, for example, he sought to obtain information on a facility that provides drinking water for Kirkenes.

Badanin’s second career has coincided with the transformation of the Russian Orthodox Church into a kind of spiritual arm of the Kremlin’s military-intelligence structure. Priests bless nuclear missiles and tell front-line troops that they will be resurrected if they die in Ukraine. Western security and intelligence services have warned that the Kremlin is particularly reliant on the Orthodox Church abroad—both for recruiting intelligence sources and for carrying out influence operations—because it is not directly affected by international sanctions.

In Finnmark, the work of men like Mitrofan Badanin goes beyond recruitment and propaganda. According to Myklebost, the professor, it’s about ideological subversion, sensitizing the local population to the idea that Russia’s presence in Finnmark predates that of the Norwegian state. “They use history to legitimatize the idea that this is part of the Russian cultural sphere,” Myklebost said.

Badanin has taken a particular interest in the history of the Pomors, a small seafaring group that originated in Russia but whose members spent much of the past millennium hunting and fishing in what is now northern Norway. The Pomors left traces of Orthodox crosses wherever they had been. In the past decade, representatives of the Orthodox Church have systematically restored old Pomor crosses and erected new ones. The area coincides with the exact territory that would be most strategically useful to Russia’s nuclear defense—Norway’s entire Barents Sea coastline, all the way up to the Svalbard archipelago, where the top Russian official is believed to be a military-intelligence operative serving under diplomatic cover. (The official denies this.)

“Now that they have the crosses, and a Russian Orthodox priest has been there, sprinkling his holy water, the narrative back home is that these are Russian holy lands,” Myklebost told me. “This also means that they can be defended militarily.” Last year, Russian outlets started claiming that the Pentagon was constructing a secret biological-weapons laboratory on a small island between Svalbard and mainland Norway. Similar fabrications were made about sites in Ukraine to help justify the invasion.

Badanin, as the leading Orthodox authority in the Kola Peninsula, also oversees a small church in Kirkenes, near the port. Although it’s in Norwegian territory, the local priest—a dual Russian-Norwegian citizen—officially answers to him. Badanin hasn’t visited Norway since the outbreak of the war. But last summer he gave a sermon at the Church of Boris and Gleb, in the Russian postage stamp on the Norwegian side of the river. “Here starts a hostile and unfriendly world,” he told his followers. On another occasion, speaking to a group of soldiers, he wondered what would happen if Russia lost the war in Ukraine: “Is there any point to continue history? Or is it time to bring fire and sulfur to earth, and let everything burn?”

Such threats are not abstract in South Varanger. On October 30, 1961, the Soviet Union detonated the largest ever nuclear bomb, on a remote Barents Sea archipelago called Novaya Zemlya. The explosion was more than three thousand times as powerful as Hiroshima, and generated an “atmospheric disturbance” that “orbited the earth three times,” according to two Soviet scientists who worked on the bomb. Six hundred miles from the blast site, Norwegian conscripts stood transfixed at their border posts, watching the horizon glow.

In recent years, the Russian government has also been using the history of the Second World War and its aftermath to drive a wedge between locals and the government in Oslo. One day, Harald Sunde, from Kirkenes’s municipal council, who has written two local-history books, took me on a tour of the town. Like many people there, he is fascinated by the lingering presence of the war—trenches and bunkers dug in peoples’ back yards, rusted cannisters and remnants of heavy weaponry scattered among the fjords. The Germans occupied Kirkenes for four years and used the area as a staging ground for tens of thousands of troops during a failed assault on Murmansk. The Soviet Air Force, meanwhile, carried out so many bombing runs on Kirkenes that only thirteen homes were left unscathed.

During the Nazi occupation, a number of people in South Varanger were trained by Soviet intelligence to act as partisans—gathering information on German positions and transmitting it covertly to the Soviet Red Army. When the Nazis retreated from the area, in October, 1944, and Soviet troops moved in, “they supposedly treated the civilians very well,” Sunde said. “And they left afterward. They didn’t stay here, like they did in many other areas in Europe, like the Baltic states, Poland, and Czechoslovakia.”

Sunde led me to a monument, just outside the town center, depicting a triumphant Soviet soldier clutching a rifle. The original design called for the statue to be forty feet tall, and for the soldier to be crushing a German eagle under his foot, he said. But, by the time it was under construction, West Germany was being integrated into NATO , and so it was built at half the height, with the foot on a rock.

During the Cold War, East Finnmark was regarded by the rest of Norway as ideologically distant. Norway joined NATO as a founding member; the people of South Varanger elected a Communist mayor. In the fifties and sixties, officers with the domestic-security service—a predecessor to the P.S.T.—carried out illegal surveillance of former partisans and suspected Communists in South Varanger, and sought to prohibit them from being employed at the mine. The Soviets seized on these divisions, establishing a Norwegian-Soviet Friendship Society and pushing the message that Oslo didn’t care about the north—that the government was merely a tool of officials in Brussels and Washington, D.C.

In the nineties, the security service underwent a public reckoning, opening its files to all who had been wrongfully surveilled. The King of Norway apologized to the partisans and honored their contributions to the fight against Nazism. “But this is a very vivid, very important part of public memory in East Finnmark,” Myklebost said. “At the same time, it’s very clearly used by the Russian Foreign Ministry and its diplomatic representatives in Norway.”

About a decade ago, Myklebost noticed that the Russian consul-general in Kirkenes had started systematically mapping, restoring, and holding ceremonies at monuments erected to honor Soviet soldiers and prisoners, whom the Nazis imported to Norway to build railway lines, roads, and other infrastructure. The Russians also erected new monuments, and falsely implied that the Red Army had liberated all of northern Norway, not just Kirkenes. Norwegian history enthusiasts—pensioners, mostly, who were upset by the mistreatment of the partisans—attended the ceremonies. The Russian delegations included politicians and Orthodox bishops, and were often organized by the head of the F.S.B.’s veterans group in Murmansk. These “patriotic memory tours,” as the visits were called, received funding from the Barents Secretariat. They also served as cover for at least one F.S.B. agent to travel all over East Finnmark.

In official F.S.B. publications and the Russian press, Norwegian participants were depicted as endorsing Kremlin narratives on behalf of Norwegian organizations that, in fact, did not exist. When the mayor of Vardø attended a ceremony, he was given a St. George ribbon—a symbol of support for the Russian military—and photographed wearing it. Around that time, Putin invited the then mayor of Kirkenes to the Russian Embassy in Oslo, to be awarded the Order of Friendship.

Each October, Russian officials visit the Soviet war memorial in Kirkenes, to commemorate the liberation from the Nazis. Until recently, the monument was “a site of brotherhood and friendship,” Harald Sunde told me. For its seventy-fifth anniversary, in 2019, Putin sent his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, along with the commander of the Northern Fleet. Norway sent its foreign minister, its Prime Minister, and its king. Before the ceremony, Sunde was invited, along with a few other partisan-history enthusiasts, to meet Lavrov. Sunde had discovered a partisan cave in the mountains and written a book about the resistance movement; now he presented a copy to Lavrov, and shook his hand.

Two years later, the new Russian consul-general, Nikolai Konygin, invited Sunde and several other Norwegians to the consulate. He poured them shots of vodka and pinned a medal from the Russian Ministry of Defense to each of their jackets. Sunde was proud of his work on partisan history. But the ceremony made him uncomfortable, and he sipped only half of the shot. Soon afterward, he asked the P.S.T. for advice on how to avoid being exploited for propaganda purposes. “I did not want to be in their pocket,” he told me, of the Russians. “I did not want to be a useful idiot.”

A few days into the invasion of Ukraine, Sunde walked into the consulate and returned his Russian medal, in protest. The next time Konygin spoke at the Soviet war memorial, he told the assembled guests that, just as the Soviets had liberated them from the Nazis, so Russia was now striving to liberate Ukraine.

In October, 2023, Sunde co-wrote an editorial in a local paper, warning that the presence of any Russian official at the annual ceremony would be “an insult to Norway, to Ukraine, and to victims of war in all countries.”

Three days before the event, Sunde walked into a flower shop to order a yellow wreath on behalf of the municipality. The plan was to place it atop a makeshift pedestal—a step stool draped in a blue tablecloth—at the foot of the monument, to represent the Ukrainian flag.

“Have the Russians ordered anything?” he asked the shop owner.

“No, Harald—nothing yet.”

But when Sunde returned to pick up the wreath, two days later, he ran into one of Konygin’s assistants at the shop. The man had come to collect a wreath of identical size, in Russian colors. “You know, you’re not welcome tomorrow, at the monument,” Sunde said to him. The man just smiled and walked away.

Early the next morning, Sunde arrived at the monument to set up the pedestal. The mayor, Magnus Mæland, appeared, and Sunde handed him the wreath. “I don’t believe in low tension anymore,” Mæland, who had been elected just a few weeks earlier, told me. “I believe that we have to be strong, because the only language that the Putin regime understands is strength. If you’re not telling your whole opinion to the Russians, they will take your silence as approval.”

The ceremony was held at 8:30 a . m ., to insure that the Russians didn’t beat them to it. There were a half-dozen journalists present, but no townspeople. Mæland addressed the crowd: “In 1944, Ukrainian soldiers were among those in the Soviet Red Army who contributed to our liberation.” He went on, “Today, we support Ukraine in its pursuit of liberation.”

Mæland and Sunde left. Then, just before 11 A . M ., a small group of townspeople started to assemble—Russian citizens and their supporters living in Kirkenes. A pair of cars with blue diplomatic plates pulled up to the monument. Konygin climbed out and delivered a speech, wearing a St. George ribbon. The air was frigid—his breath turned to mist as he spoke. Sunde learned of the Russians’ arrival, and hurried over. He stood alone with his arms crossed, his back turned to Konygin in protest. Some of the Russian townspeople snickered.

Konygin finished his remarks, and placed the Russian wreath below Sunde’s makeshift pedestal. Then he retrieved another display—an enormous array with plastic flowers—and placed it over the municipality’s wreath, smothering it.

Sunde turned his head, then whirled around, enraged. “Nikolai, you can’t do that!” he said. He walked over to Konygin, but Konygin acted as if Sunde didn’t exist. He and his retinue walked back to their vehicles and drove off.

To several of the Norwegian journalists at the scene, Konygin’s actions felt like an act of domination, an assertion of Russian power—and perhaps even sovereignty—over a patch of Norwegian land. Sunde called Mæland, who returned and placed Konygin’s plastic flower display to the side of the monument. Mæland began to speak to the journalists and Russians who were still present. “You must respect the South Varanger municipality,” he said.

As he spoke, a Russian woman who lives in Kirkenes slipped behind him. She picked up Konygin’s display and placed it back on top of the municipality’s wreath.

That night, Konygin’s display went missing. It was late October, and the river was still flowing. Then came the mørketid , and when it lifted—when the first dawn came, two months later, and the sun breached the horizon at last—those plastic flowers were entombed in the ice.

After the ceremony, Russian officials summoned Norway’s Ambassador in Moscow and lodged a complaint against Mæland, calling his response to Konygin “an act of vandalism” and a “violation of the memory of the soldiers-liberators.” Soon afterward, an anonymous Facebook account circulated a Photoshopped image of Mæland standing at the memorial as a suicide drone flew at his head. Then Sunde led a successful effort for South Varanger to cancel its friendship agreement with the district of Pechenga. (The agreement with Severomorsk, the headquarters of the Northern Fleet, had been scrapped a year into the war.) “Think of this area as a pot of water on a low boil,” Roaldsnes told me, over a Christmas lunch of salted sheep. “Once in a while, it boils over.”

The Russian Embassy in Oslo declined to answer detailed questions, claiming that this article is “unworthy of substantive comment, since it is a malicious fiction.” But, while I was living in Kirkenes, last November, days before the sun set for the last time of the year, more Russian hybrid operations that had been tested in Kirkenes started being replicated, at scale, all over Europe. The F.S.B. rounded up migrants from Africa and the Middle East and pushed them across the border into northern Finland, in subzero temperatures. Then a Russian electronic-warfare unit started jamming G.P.S. signals in the Baltic Sea. Tens of thousands of civilian flights have been affected—alarms blaring in the cockpit, passengers blissfully unaware. The Kremlin also issued criminal charges against the Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, for her decision to remove Soviet war memorials. “Crimes against the memory of those who liberated the world from Nazism and Fascism must be punished,” a spokesperson for the foreign minister said. “This is just the beginning.”

When the Kremlin first announced mobilizations, to restock the front line in Ukraine, hundreds of wealthy Russians fled to Kirkenes. Suddenly, the hotels were filled with “young Russian men wearing expensive sweatpants,” as Roaldsnes put it. Most of them continued on; Kirkenes was just a choke point on the way out. Many will likely never return—a man from Murmansk parked his Lamborghini at the Kirkenes airport, removed the license plate, and vanished.

Among those who stayed was Georgii Chentemirov, the former head of the journalists’ union in Karelia, just south of the Kola Peninsula. Chentemirov left Russia six months into the war and joined the staff of the Barents Observer. A few months later, the Kremlin declared him a foreign agent, and government officials in Karelia began reposting anonymous blog posts saying that he was a traitor.

In Kirkenes, Chentemirov’s new neighbors are Russians who support the war. “They believe Russian propaganda,” he told me. “I don’t understand it, because Russian propaganda says that we need to destroy Europe. And they live in Europe!”

Chentemirov joined a local boxing class, in a bomb shelter that had been converted into a gym. I joined as well, for several weeks of the mørketid , and was often paired with a fighter from Kherson, near Crimea, who had a thick scar that ran below his left cheekbone, from his nose almost to his ear. I never learned which side of the war he was on—Kherson has been won and lost by each side. Chentemirov, who is six feet three, usually trained against the only other person in the group who was as tall as him: a man in his mid-thirties named Igor, who worked as a driver and courier for Konygin.

There were only two heavy punching bags, so some pairs had to practice on pads that had been duct-taped around concrete support pillars. The coach shouted instructions in Russian. The lights flickered. After class, my sweat always turned into ice. “Some people cannot stand the dark time,” a local had told me. “But you have to be able to cope with it, or else you cannot live here.” Chentemirov and Igor stood on opposite sides of a pillar, punching the concrete between them. ♦

A previous version of this piece misspelled Kari Aga Myklebost’s last name.

New Yorker Favorites

In the weeks before John Wayne Gacy’s scheduled execution, he was far from reconciled to his fate .

What HBO’s “Chernobyl” got right, and what it got terribly wrong .

Why does the Bible end that way ?

A new era of strength competitions is testing the limits of the human body .

How an unemployed blogger confirmed that Syria had used chemical weapons.

An essay by Toni Morrison: “ The Work You Do, the Person You Are .”

Sign up for our daily newsletter to receive the best stories from The New Yorker .

Moscow Free Tour

• Page active

Description

Highlights:.

• Hit the Red Square;
• Explore the nooks and crannies of Alexander Garden;
• Get a taste of the ancient Kitay Gorod;
• Learn about the tragic destiny of the Christ the Savior Cathedral;
• Roam through the heart of Moscow.

Walking Tour Itinerary:

Here are our TOP 7 things to help you start your Russian adventure or tick off before you say goodbye to Moscow.

Wander around the vast cobblestone square with rich past, gorgeous architecture, incredible GUM , bright colors of the Kremlin and swirling Saint Basil’s Cathedral .

Kitay Gorod

Walk across the Red Square to see the embankment of old Moscow river and plunge into the atmosphere of ancient Russian village where nobles preferred to settle in XV century.

Varvarka street

Walk up Varvarka street to find the landmark of Kitay Gorod - Palace of the Romanov Boyars, which was built in the XVI century and where lived the first Tsar from the Romanov dynasty.

Old English Court

Look at the Old English Court , which used to be the English Embassy in Moscow and where Ivan the Terrible confined the envoy from England, because Queen Elizabeth I refused to marry him.

Alexander Garden

Watch the solemn ceremony of the Changing of the guards , pay respect to the eternal flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier , and the stone Grotto , The huge fountain in the centre adds a sophisticated feel to the almost 200 year old garden.

Christ the Savior Cathedral

Walk to the cathedral which is of a great cultural value to Russians. Its marvelous exterior, enormous golden domes, colossal bronze doors and pristine white walls will touch your feelings.

Patriarch’s Bridge

Pause on the bridge and marvel at the Kremlin, river cruises, monument after Peter the Great and Red October Chocolate Factory , which is now a nightlife hub for youngsters.

About Moscow:

We picked up a list of article that might be useful and helpful to you during your stay in Moscow. These are things to do in Moscow, tips about Moscow, best cafes in Moscow and simply fun facts about Moscow. Enjoy reading!

Before coming to Moscow:

• Our fun guides sharing their observations about their tours and best practices:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-private-guides-on-tours-in-moscow
• What you should know about Moscow:  
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/5-things-to-know-before-you-go-to-moscow

Off the beaten path of Moscow:

• Kitay Gorod:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-must-see-fun-facts-about-kitay-gorod
• Zamoskvorechye:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-must-see-fun-facts-about-zamoskvorechye
• White City:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-off-the-beaten-path-white-city  

The best parks in Moscow:

• Muzeon Statues Park:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-off-the-beaten-path-muzeon-park
• Gorky Park: 
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-gorky-park
• Tsaritsino Park: 
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-must-see-37-reasons-to-visit-tsaritsyno
• Kolomenskoe Park:
•   https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/things-to-do-in-moscow-kolomenskoe-museum-reserve

The most historical and beautiful streets of Moscow:

• Arbat  srreet: 
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/things-to-do-in-moscow-arbat-street
• Tverskaya street: 
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-things-to-do-tverskaya-street
• Downtown of Moscow: 
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/things-to-do-moscow-streets

What to do in Moscow:

• How to have a Real Russian Experience:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/real-russian-experience
• Things to do in Moscow:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/21-things-to-do-in-moscow
• Architectural masterpieces, hidden gems of Moscow:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/things-to-do-in-moscow-off-the-beaten-path
• Top Moscow attractions:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/top-10-moscow-attractions

Budget travel:

• How to have fun in Moscow for less than $4:
• How to save money in Moscow:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/7-ways-to-save-money-while-travelling-to-moscow

Cafes & restaurants in Moscow:

• Moscow cafes with Russian breakfast:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-cafes-with-russian-breakfast
• Best Moscow restaurants:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/best-moscow-restaurants
• Best coffee shops in Moscow:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-best-coffee-shops

Moscow Metro:

• Facts about Moscow Metro:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/fun-facts-about-moscow-metro
• Myths about Moscow Metro:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/7-myths-about-moscow-metro
• Facts about Moscow:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/fun-facts-50-facts-about-moscow
• Fun Facts about Kremlin:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/33-fun-facts-from-our-kremlin-tours
• The best flea markets in Moscow:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/moscow-best-flea-markets
• Top 5 Russian souvenirs:
• https://friendlylocalguides.com/blog/top-5-russian-souvenirs

What you get:

• + A friend in Moscow.
• + Private & customized Moscow tour.
• + An exciting pastime, not just boring history lessons.
• + An authentic experience of local life.
• + Flexibility during the walking tour: changes can be made at any time to suit individual preferences.
• + Amazing deals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the very best cafes & restaurants. Discounts on weekdays (Mon-Fri).
• + A photo session amongst spectacular Moscow scenery that can be treasured for a lifetime.
• + Good value for souvenirs, taxis, and hotels.
• + Expert advice on what to do, where to go, and how to make the most of your time in Moscow.

Write your review

2024 MLB postseason: Magic number for New York Mets to make playoffs

With the MLB postseason just around the corner, the teams that will compete for the World Series this year are starting to come into view. However, many teams have still yet to secure their spot, including the New York Mets .

After a sluggish start to the season, the Mets have emerged as one of the National League's best teams and they're playing arguably their best baseball of the season at just the right time. Now, that isn't to say that the Mets are a lock for the postseason. As a matter of fact, they're only one game up on the Atlanta Braves for the final wild card spot. However, given the Mets' incredible play as of late, having won 13 of their last 17 dating back to Aug. 29.

Here is the Mets' magic number for the postseason and division as of Sept. 17.

MLB power rankings: Yankees, Aaron Judge get comfortable in AL East penthouse

What is the Mets' magic number to make the 2024 MLB postseason?

• Mets to reach MLB postseason: 11

Note: Mets currently hold tiebreaker over Braves, meaning if both teams finish the regular season with the same record, the Mets will earn the playoff spot, or the higher seed if both teams qualify

Latest MLB standings

American league:.

• New York Yankees: 87-63
• Baltimore Orioles: 84-66
• Boston Red Sox: 75-75
• Tampa Bay Rays: 73-77
• Toronto Blue Jays: 72-78

AL Central:

• Cleveland Guardians: 87-64
• Kansas City Royals: 82-69
• Minnesota Twins: 79-71
• Detroit Tigers: 78-73
• Chicago White Sox: 36-115
• Houston Astros: 81-69
• Seattle Mariners: 77-73
• Texas Rangers: 71-79
• Oakland Athletics: 65-86
• Los Angeles Angels: 60-90

National League:

• Philadelphia Phillies: 90-60
• New York Mets : 82-68
• Atlanta Braves: 81-69
• Washington Nationals: 68-82
• Miami Marlins: 55-95

NL Central:

• Milwaukee Brewers: 87-63
• Chicago Cubs: 77-73
• St. Louis Cardinals: 75-75
• Cincinnati Reds: 73-78
• Pittsburgh Pirates: 71-79
• Los Angeles Dodgers: 86-61
• San Diego Padres: 86-65
• Arizona Diamondbacks: 83-67
• San Francisco Giants: 73-78
• Colorado Rockies: 58-93

When does the MLB postseason start?

Although the MLB regular season finishes on Sunday, September 29. There will be one day between the end of the regular season and the start of the postseason. The postseason will begin with the Wild Card Series on Tuesday, October 1.

MLB News: Chicago White Sox nearing record for most losses

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Jane’s Addiction to Cancel Tour After Onstage Fight

In a social media post, the rock band said it was halting its reunion tour after the group’s singer, Perry Farrell, hit its guitarist at a Boston show.

By Annie Correal

The rock band Jane’s Addiction announced on Monday that it would cancel the remainder of its reunion tour in the United States and Canada days after its singer, Perry Farrell, physically confronted its guitarist at a concert in Boston.

A message posted to Instagram said the band had made “the difficult decision to take some time away as a group.”

Jane’s Addiction, which rose to fame in the 1980s and 1990s, was about halfway through its North America tour when the episode took place on Friday.

The tour was one of several reunions convened this year by rock bands that gained cult followings in earlier decades. It was the first tour by the original band members in 14 years, according to Rolling Stone .

The episode took place at the Leader Bank Pavilion in Boston. Video captured by concertgoers and verified by Storyful showed the band’s singer Farrell confronting Dave Navarro, a guitarist, as the two performed.

Farrell slammed his shoulder into Navarro, then appeared to throw a punch at him before being physically restrained. In the videos, Farrell, who had been yelling vocals into a microphone, shouted at Navarro and then doubled over, appearing agitated.

Navarro shared a statement on his Instagram account on Monday saying that “the mental health difficulties of our singer” were the reason the band had decided it could not go forward with the tour.

The message, which was also signed by the group’s other members, Eric Avery and Stephen Perkins, said, “Our concern for his personal health and safety as well as our own has left us no alternative.”

The message ended: “Our hearts are broken.”

On Monday, a representative for Farrell shared a statement from the singer.

“This weekend has been incredibly difficult and after having the time and space to reflect, it is only right that I apologize to my bandmates, especially Dave Navarro, fans, family and friends for my actions during Friday’s show,” he said. “Unfortunately, my breaking point resulted in inexcusable behavior, and I take full accountability for how I chose to handle the situation.”

Farrell’s wife, Etty Lau Farrell, said on Instagram after the concert that her husband had been upset throughout the tour about the band’s sound levels drowning out his vocals. He was suffering from tinnitus and a sore throat, she said.

The tension spilled over that night. “He was screaming just to be heard,” she said in the message. She praised Navarro for keeping calm but also accused Avery of entering the fight and punching Farrell.

Jane’s Addiction formed in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s and is perhaps best known for the MTV hit “Been Caught Stealing” from the band’s 1990 album “Ritual de lo Habitual.” It followed the cult favorite “Nothing’s Shocking” (1988) and a live album, “Jane’s Addiction” (1987). The song “Just Because” (2003) spent nine weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, peaking at No. 72 .

Farrell, 65, is known as a rock ’n’ roll frontman and also as an “inveterate impresario .” In 1991, Farrell created the festival that would become synonymous with ’90s alternative rock, Lollapalooza, where Jane’s Addiction was a headlining act.

Jane’s Addiction has periodically held reunion tours, including in 2001. A review in The New York Times at the time described “Perry Farrell strutting in flashy suits and feathered hats as he sang, and the bare-chested Dave Navarro striking classic heavy-metal guitar poses.”

This year’s tour brought together original band members, a rare treat for early fans.

The stop in Boston came more than halfway through the band’s North America tour . Fifteen scheduled shows, including one this past weekend in Bridgeport, Conn., were called off as a result of the band’s decision.

Fans reacted to the message announcing the tour’s cancellation with a mix of disappointment and support for the band for having made the choice to prioritize Farrell’s mental health.

Some concertgoers said there were signs of a problem before Boston’s show. At a concert in New Orleans in late August, Mr. Farrell was screeching into the microphone and making strange comments between songs, according to George Ingmire, a fan of the group and a longtime radio producer and D.J. who attended the show.

“He was making comments about New Orleans being a good place to score heroin. I found that offensive. I left halfway through,” Mr. Ingmire said in a telephone interview.

“I saw him back in the 1980s,” he added of Farrell. “And it was magical. Maybe he was as much of a mess then, but I doubt it.”

Annie Correal reports from the U.S. and Latin America for The Times. More about Annie Correal

Find the Right Soundtrack for You

Trying to expand your musical horizons take a listen to something new..

Sean Combs has been arrested in Manhattan  after a grand jury indictment.

The Lijadu Sisters , Nigeria’s twin musical pioneers, are celebrated anew.

Herb Alpert’s 50th album is here. What’s kept him going places ?

Jackson Browne  on his song that connects Nico and Margot Tenenbaum.

Hear the latest Weeknd track , and 8 more notable new songs.