Yes, binoculars and cameras = western agent until proven otherwise. Doesn’t sound too fun.
IIRC, if you were in the vicinity of any bridge, rail line, or airport you were breaking the law.
BITD, they were too paranoid to even give their own troops maps! When I was a midshipman a
senior officer told me that half the forces which invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 got lost.
But we digress, if willingly. Have you been up to Karelia or further east along the Arctic coast?
I had hoped to get to Varanger Peninsula on this trip but it isn’t to be. Besides, the wife would
have been committed after 10 minutes with the mossies.
We went all the way up to Kandalaksha last summer but we did it far too late and birding was a waste of time. Interesting culturally though, old , almost deserted fishing villages on the White Sea, the World oldest petroglyphs at Belomorsk. Some of the camping on lakes which you have to yourself, is fantastic. At some point, we plan to go back up to an island which is famous for Belugas.
My adventure with security forces.............
I had just been out as I had every day for about five years on my local trail, when a small truck came out of a gas distribution terminal and approached me asking for my papers. I was shirtless on a hot day, clad in shorts and flip flops and slathered in insect spray, no papers. They took me in to the terminal and kept me for two hours as they searched my camera for incriminating pictures, of course there were none. I though that they would let me go but after two hours, armed police arrived, bent me over their car as they searched me, clapped on the handcuffs and took me away to a police station, things had gone from irritating, to serious.
My lack of Russian language was letting me down so it was a bit unsettling, not knowing exactly, what they suspected me of but eventually it came out. I was being accused of 'photographing an installation of the Russian Federation', shit. The police station was as you'd expect, all a bit 'Midnight Express', the state of the walls in the toilet, reflected the fact that there had probably never been any toilet paper.
I waited for a couple of hours with cops who couldn't speak English until the suits arrived, they were taking this seriously it seemed. I was grilled for a further hour or so by the men in suits, despite there being only insect pictures on my pocket camera. Obviously the binoculars weren't helping my case either but as I was Brit, in a remote suburb and close to a gas terminal, they really wanted to detain me for something, anything. I can only be thankfull that I wasn't toting my wifes big lens, there would have been some real questions to answer! Anyway, after about 5 hours in total, they begrudgingly accepted that I was in fact not James Bond and when my father in law arrived with my papers, they let me go. In fact, they all lined up to shake my hand as I left the station which was a bit odd?
That was three years ago now and I have never ventured so close to the terminal again, despite the track being public and if I ever do, it will be with passport and papers.
A