We don't want this fence," says taxi driver Syvonne Tucker. "We want to have this relationship with Russia in the same way we've been having for all these years."
Heading on the E105 highway towards the Norwegian border, she says she many other residents in her town of Kirkenes in the far north of Norway feel the same.
"It's like if someone in your back garden put up a two-metre fence, you would wonder why your neighbour is doing this."
The Norwegian government says the steel fence is needed to tighten security at the road crossing into Europe's passport-free Schengen zone. It is around 200m (650 feet) long and four metres high.
More on this story:
- The asylum seekers heading to Norway by bicycle
- Has the Kremlin been meddling with its Arctic friends?
- Ukraine crisis spells Arctic freeze in Russia-Norway ties
Last year around 5,500 asylum seekers, many from Syria, crossed into Norway at the border post after taking the so-called Arctic route into Europe.
Kirkenes residents joke that intruders could easily walk or swim around the 200m construction, but on closer inspection it is connected to an older, thinner fence that runs the length of the border.
Even without the fence this story had an element of farce. Thousands of migrants crossed Norway's Arctic border by bike last year, because by law they could not go over by foot.
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