Quirrel and Scandinavia?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 87827

bboy mentioned "a very large sparsely inhabited Russian peninsula to
the north east of Finland" as a possible location for Durmstrang and
added, "I guess my point here is th[at] despite being in such close
proximity to Scandinavia, and generally considered in the Scandinavian 
region, this Russian peninsula that I speculate is the location of
Durmstrang."

Berit replied:
Actually, I didn't know Rowling said in an interview that Durmstrang 
is located in Scandinavia. Do you have the exact quote? I'm also a 
bit hesitant of including the Russian peninsula and Murmansk among 
the Scandinavian countries. According to my knowledge no part of 
Russia has ever been considered Scandinavian. <snip>
I still find it very odd that Durmstrang's in Norway or Sweden. Both 
the name of the school (German-sounding) and the name of its 
students (Slavic-sounding) are very foreign to the Scandinavian 
language. 

bboy_mn again:
> 
> I will admit that my point was somewhat lost amid my scattered and
> jumbled thoughts, but the point was the Murmansk Peninsula of Russia
> while not technically a Scandinavian country; it is without a doubt in
> the Scandinavian region far more than it is in the European region. I
> mean, it touches Norway and Finland in the north, and completely
> borders Finland in the west, that's about as deep in the Scandinavian
> region as you can get, and equally far from what is traditionally
> considered Europe. <snip>

Carol:
I've yet to find the interview in which JKR states that Durmstrang is
in Scandinavia. As someone else pointed out, it's not in the Quick
Quotes search engine. To me the relevant points are that it's in an
area farther north than Hogwarts, which means it must be in either
Scandinavia or European Russia, and it's in a mountainous region with
lots of lakes. That second point suggests not Sweden, Norway, or the
Murmansk Peninsula but the area of Russia just north of St.
Petersburg, which has both mountains and two very large lakes. That
location would fit well with a headmaster whose name is Igor
Karkaroff, which I take to be Russian, and it's slightly closer to
Viktor Krum's home country of Bulgaria than the Murmansk Peninsula. I
would bet that Antonin Dolohov is also a Durmstrang alum, possibly an
old classmate of Karkaroff's.

Carol, who wanted Durmstrang to be a little closer to vampire country
but will settle for Russia