Øvre Pasvik National Park
Encyclopedia
Øvre Pasvik National Park lies in Sør-Varanger
Sør-Varanger
Sør-Varanger is a municipality in Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Kirkenes. Sør-Varanger was separated from the municipality of Vadsø on 1 July 1858.-Name:...

 municipality in Finnmark
Finnmark
or Finnmárku is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. By land it borders Troms county to the west, Finland to the south and Russia to the east, and by water, the Norwegian Sea to the northwest, and the Barents Sea to the north and northeast.The county was formerly known as Finmarkens...

 county, Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

. The park was opened in 1970 and was originally 63 km². In 2003 the park size was increased to 119 km², at the same time that the adjacent Øvre Pasvik landskapsvernområde, a national protected area, was opened with an area of 170 km².

The national park is part of the Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

n-like taiga
Taiga
Taiga , also known as the boreal forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests.Taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States and is known as the Northwoods...

 that sprawls also to Finland and Russia. In 1992 a twin zapovednik was established by the Russian authorities in Pechengsky District
Pechengsky District
Pechengsky District is an administrative and municipal district , one of the five in Murmansk Oblast, Russia. It is located to the northwest of the Kola Peninsula on the coast of the Barents Sea and borders with Finland in the south and southwest and with Norway in the west, northwest, and north...

 across the border under the name Pasvik State Nature Reserve. The Vätsäri Wilderness Area
Vätsäri Wilderness Area
The Vätsäri Wilderness Area is a wilderness reserve in Inari, Northern Finland. It was established in 1991 like all the other 11 wilderness areas in Lapland. Its area is . It is governed by the Metsähallitus...

 on the Finnish side was established in 1991. Altogether they form the Pasvik-Inari Trilateral Park.

The tripoint
Tripoint
A tripoint, or trijunction , is a geographical point at which the borders of three countries or subnational entities meet....

 Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

-Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

-Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

 (Treriksrøysa
Treriksrøysa
Treriksrøysa . Norway has two three-country land borderpoints and also two cairns of a similar type. The western is on the meetingpoint of her borders to Finland and Sweden, and the eastern on the meetingpoint of her borders to Finland and Russia.-See also:* Treriksröset - An article about the...

) lies near the southernmost point of the national park; at that point, not only do three countries meet, but also three different time zones: Russia to the south uses Moscow Time
Moscow Time
Moscow Time is the time zone for the city of Moscow, Russia and most of western Russia, including Saint Petersburg. It is the second westernmost of the nine time zones of Russia. Moscow Time has been UTC+4 year-round since 27 March 2011....

, UTC+4; Finland to the west uses Eastern European Time
Eastern European Time
Eastern European Time is one of the names of UTC+02:00 time zone, 2 hours ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. It is used in some European countries that also use Eastern European Summer Time as a summer daylight saving time.- Usage :...

, UTC+2; and Norway to the north and east of the tripoint uses Central European Time
Central European Time
Central European Time , used in most parts of the European Union, is a standard time that is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time . The time offset from UTC can be written as +01:00...

, UTC+1.

The name

The name of the district Pasvik is the first element of the rivername Pasvikelva. This name is a Norwegianized form of Sami
Sami languages
Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...

Báhčaveaijohka. The meaning of the first element is unknown, the middle element is a shortened form of veadji 'small river' - and the last element is johka 'river' (translated to elva, the finite form of Norwegian elv f 'river'). The word øvre is also Norwegian, with the meaning 'upper' - thus 'the upper part of Pasvik river'.

External links

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