It's amazing how entrepreneurial drive can manifest itself.
Iranian refugee Kazem Ariaiwand, denied political asylum in Norway, decided to head for the only place nearby that had no visa or residence permit requirements - the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago about 300 miles from the northern tip of Norway. (In terms of a 1920 treaty Svalbard, whilst under Norwegian control, is an international zone requiring no visas.) He settled in the capital, Longyearbyen.
He had to find some way to make a living, so he took a job in a local grocery store: but this wasn't enough. He looked around on the Internet and located a used Army field kitchen truck in Germany. He persuaded his brother Mahomed, who runs an auto repair business in that country, to buy it, paint it a bright flaming red and send it up to him. He then opened the most northerly kebab store in the world, naming it "Røde Isbjørn" or "The Red Polar Bear".
Since then he's been making money hand over fist. The locals are delighted to have a fresh new flavor in town (makes a change from whale blubber and seal meat, you know) and the tourists who flock to Spitsbergen half the year are pleased to find something familiar to eat (being positively allergic to whale blubber and seal meat in most cases). I imagine in weather like that shown below (with a satisfied customer) a hot, steaming kebab would go down very well indeed!
His only problem is that he can't leave Spitsbergen. He has no visa to go anywhere, and he risks arrest and deportation back to Iran if he tries to get into Norway without one. The locals support him, but the Norwegian bureaucracy has so far proved unsympathetic.
I have to hand it to Mr. Ariaiwand. Never would I have thought of a refusal of asylum as being grounds to flee into the Arctic and open the world's most northerly kebab take-out joint! I hope he manages to sort out his legal issues and regularize his status. With drive like that, he'd be an asset to any country.
Peter
It took balls, for sure. I haven't had kebab in a long, long time. Don't think I'd head to the Arctic to change that, though.
ReplyDeleteI wish him luck, too. The fact that locals support him, speaks well of him. In a small, remote location like that, you tend to get to know people.
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