The Svalbard Heist

January 26, 2020 6:30 PM

The Bizarre Bank Robbery That Shook an Arctic Town
posted by Chrysostom (21 comments total)

Summary of story, as far as I got:
Description of the place.
Mention of someone who wanted to go there.
Desciption of someone who lives there.
Description of someone else.
I give up on actually getting relevant information ever, stop reading.

Is there anything actually bizarre? I'm curious but not enough to slog through the whole thing.
posted by PennD at 6:50 PM on January 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

Summary: Dude robs the bank at gunpoint, doesn't fire his weapon. Local cops are surprised to hear of a bank robbery. He returns the gun to the rental shop and goes back to the bank to be arrested.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 7:03 PM on January 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

“Folk og rovere i Kardemomme By”

TIL that "robber" and "rover" are etymologically connected, which puts quite a different slant on songs like "So We'll Go No More a Roving".
posted by Joe in Australia at 7:07 PM on January 26, 2020 [3 favorites]

Got a faint hint of Fortitude at times.

Thank you, Chrysostom.
posted by doctornemo at 8:11 PM on January 26, 2020 [2 favorites]

This is an interesting place to want to be. Just as interesting is the nearby Soviet-era ghost town of Pyramiden. It was abandoned by the Russians in 1998, but a bust of Lenin still stands near the centre of town. Google Street View is worth a visit.
posted by cooper green at 8:17 PM on January 26, 2020 [4 favorites]

So, I take it this did not involve a semi-drunken bear, then?
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 9:51 PM on January 26, 2020 [1 favorite]

“Folk og rovere i Kardemomme By”

TIL that "robber" and "rover" are etymologically connected,

I dunno if they're etymologically connected, but that book title as quoted is wrong. It is "folk og røvere" - ø is it not the same letter as o. So yeah, if you have that etymology fact from a different source, great! But if you're basing it on the similarity as rendered here, know that the article makes a mistake.
posted by Dysk at 10:35 PM on January 26, 2020

Well, it's kind of complicated because while "rover" meaning "pirate" did come from a word meaning "one who robs", via Dutch, the meaning "to wander about" may come from a word meaning "to behave madly, to rave, to be in a reverie"; but if so it was probably influenced by its other meaning.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:31 PM on January 26, 2020

I thought that someone tried to rob the global seed vault.....
posted by lemon_icing at 3:13 AM on January 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

In fact, this article plays very fast and loose with its translations in general. "Folk og røvere i Kardemomme by" does not 'translate as' "When the Robbers Came to Cardamom Town" as the article claims. That is the English title of the book, but it is not a translation and they do not mean the same thing. Similarly, '“Gjelder hele Svalbard” (“All Over Svalbard”)' is a little off. It's more like "concerns all of Svalbard" or "applies to all of Svalbard" than "all over Svalbard". The latter does capture the intended meaning of the sign, but is a terrible translation - it implies the sign is telling you that there are polar bears all over Svalbard. It kind of is, but not directly: it's saying the polar bear warning applies to all of Svalbard. "Gjelder hele..." is a standard bit of signage you'll also see under speed limits &c. when they apply to entire islands.


Also rendering Tromsø in Swedish (Tromsö) is a weird one, especially given the author just substituted an O for Ø instead in earlier places (like røvere).

It was an interesting article, but these details just distracted and frustrated me so much.
posted by Dysk at 3:15 AM on January 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

TIL that "Folk och rövare i Kamomilla stad" is not a Swedish book as I'd always assumed.
posted by soundofsuburbia at 6:02 AM on January 27, 2020

I thought that someone tried to rob the global seed vault is the next Paulo Bacigalupi novel's plot.
posted by doctornemo at 7:01 AM on January 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

When my spouse & I married, our honeymoon was a trip to Svalbard to watch a total eclipse. It was this beautiful weird frozen place... and when we were there, I realized the whole town ran on coal. I got a sinking feeling inside. Our presence there was part of a process that was going to ruin the place.

The article confirms many of those fears. It’s a weird thing to feel grateful about, but I’m grateful for this post.
posted by FallibleHuman at 8:07 AM on January 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

TIL that the Swedes translated "Kardemomme By" ("Cardamom City") as "Kamomilla Stad" (Chamomile City).

The philistines.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:30 AM on January 27, 2020

It was interesting to read this particularly as this article on climate change (Guardian interactive Jul 2019) also focuses on Longyearbyen and mentions some of the same people, such as Kim Holmen and 'scruffy mayor' Arid Olsen. Also interesting that the gist of this article is "Oh Climate Change! Crime is moving to the Arctic!" whereas the earlier one is more "The effects of Climate Change are happening more rapidly and more obviously here and they're going to have a drastic knock-on effect everywhere else on the globe, shortly."

Those three stepped barriers on the mountainside are part of the anti-avalanche defences they've had to construct due to warming.
posted by glasseyes at 11:41 AM on January 27, 2020

Also quite interesting how young women in and about the town must abruptly turn into grizzled old guys once they're past their twenties - I wish the authors had explained that.
posted by glasseyes at 11:47 AM on January 27, 2020

FWIW, "by" is also a word in Swedish, but it means village, not city.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:53 AM on January 27, 2020

Joe in Australia: "TIL that "robber" and "rover" are etymologically connected, which puts quite a different slant on songs like "So We'll Go No More a Roving"."

See also the Scots word "reiver" meaning a cattle thief.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:55 AM on January 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

And, of course, "reaver". They are all etymologically connected to the Norwegian and Swedish "røver/röver".
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:06 PM on January 27, 2020

Also quite interesting how young women in and about the town must abruptly turn into grizzled old guys once they're past their twenties - I wish the authors had explained that.
posted by glasseyes at 2:47 PM on January 27

I don't think the story is any great shakes but good lord, I was taken aback by how transparently leery the photo selection was. Photos fall into one of three categories: 1. portrait of grizzled old dude quoted in the story; 2. photo of local feature (building, landscape) discussed in the story; and 3. portrait of an attractive young woman not mentioned anywhere else who has no apparent connection to any of this. Like, come ON, you're not even pretending like there's a journalistic purpose being served here.

Meanwhile, the one woman who is mentioned in the story is not photographed; it could be that she didn't want to participate, but, well, she's also described as an "outdoorsy young mother," so it's hard not to wonder if the photo editor was being pretty crappy there, too.
posted by ZaphodB at 6:22 PM on January 27, 2020

They are all etymologically connected to the Norwegian and Swedish "røver/röver".

*cries in Danish*
posted by Dysk at 2:48 AM on January 28, 2020 [1 favorite]