It's to early to search for identity

As far as I know, Barents region was established by Norwegians to help to develop new business contacts or to make the existing ones easier.
In the past, there weren't any mutual relations throughout the whole area. Sure there were some, but allways only between some parts of the region. It never worked as one entity. For illustration - what could have in common medieval Swedish farmer and fisher from Archangelsk oblast? They could watch the same nothern lights...
Now you can find some aspects or qualities that people in this region share, but there's no need to call them identity. For me Identity is something I can't describe very precisely, it's more some kind of feeling than an observable quality.
I think, that Idenity, if it's not formed on the bases of nationality (Sami, for ex.), needs some time to develop. And time in this case means centuries, during which the region is working together. Therefore 15 years is not enough.