At the PIPE youth conference in Kirkenes some very good new ideas and proposals came up.

Turn the town around. Bring "Hurtigruta" into the city. Create a more dynamic and attractive town! These were some of the proposals. The young students came up with a ideas and opinions about the future of Kirkenes. They presented the results before an audience with local politicians and administrative representatives from Sør-Varanger kommune.

One idea was to establish a skating rink at the main square during the winter. Another was to start marketing the white snow and clear air. There should have been more information about Sør-Varanger provided in english, but the students commented as positive that much information is available in russian.

Sør-Varanger was also regarded as an interesting place for tourism and new business, especially related to Russia. Morten Jentoft, one of the speakers at the conference, has been a journalist in the Barents Region for many years. The Eastern Part of Finnmark is the most internationalised region in Norway, he stated. And he mentioned that there are a lot of future opportunities in Finnmark.