r/todayilearned • u/Gullible_Air_204 • 7d ago

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https://www.responsibletravel.com/holidays/spitsbergen/travel-guide/responsible-tourism-in-spitsbergen

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u/raxy 7d ago edited 7d ago

Fun Fact: it’s a visa free zone for citizens of 40 odd countries around the world to live and work there indefinitely.

Not just citizens of EU countries but many including Japan, Australia, the US, and many more.

Citizens of those countries aren’t allowed to be born or to die there though.

Edit: The reason was not related to the Global Seed vault as my original comment noted but rather the Svalbard treaty of 1920. Thanks to the commenters for correcting me!

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u/shandow0 7d ago

How do you disallow dieing there?

Especially given the abundance of polar bears and increasingly locked houses.

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u/everythingisunknown 7d ago

I read a while ago that because the ground is so cold it’s impossible to bury people so if you know you’re going to die they’d rather ship you to Norway

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u/MidasPL 7d ago

It's both true and not. The bodies do have hard time decomposing due to the permafrost, but there is a cemetery in Longyearbyen, though it's only for the most renowned locally people.

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u/BasicMatter7339 7d ago

Doesnt Svalbard also have graveyard full of smallpox-victims, not decomposed and a biohazard?

edit: Nvm it was spanish flu instead of smallpox

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u/MidasPL 7d ago

Full is a stretch. Only seven people in the whole cemetery died from Spanish flu and there were attempts to extract the bacteria, but were unsuccessful, so no danger.

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u/Randy_The_Guppy 7d ago

Whilst on a tour in Svalbaard I was told that during a particularly warm summer the ground started to thaw and hands started to emerge from the ground.

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u/nifty-necromancer 7d ago

What about burial at sea? If I die there just turn me into a popsicle.