Land Of The Civilized Vikings
No sign of Hagar The Horrible in the tranquil capital of Sweden.
When I announced my intention to visit Sweden, some of my work colleagues, who had only ever met Swedish people at football matches, gave me the benefit of their experience. They were all tall and blond, their country was massively expensive and they had among the highest standards of living, and suicide rates, in the world. Even in defeat, their supporters were praised by my colleagues as “very civilized.” “What were you expecting,” I asked, “Hagar the Horrible?”
Stockholm isn’t a name regularly featured in travellers’ tales of the world’s most beautiful cities, but I have rarely been so impressed by anywhere. Arriving on an overnight train from Norway, I was surprised to find early morning fishermen at the waterside near the main station on one of the fourteen islands on which it is built. The almost total absence of heavy industry makes it one of the world’s cleanest capitals and, even in the centre, fish were abundant. Across one of many bridges, the Parliament House occupies a little island of its own, but is easily accessible to the public in this famously open society. In the old town,
Gamla Stan, medieval buildings and alleyways recalled the ancientness of Prague, but combined with the affluence of Zurich. Inevitably, the watery location has earned it the nickname the
Venice of the North, although it actually sits among the freshwater of Lake Malaren rather than polluted canals. Film director Ingmar Bergman said it wasn’t a city at all, but “a rather large village, set in the middle of some forest and some lakes.” Whatever, it was one of the most attractive cities I had ever seen and I thought it a great pity that so very few people knew it. That, of course, was largely because only a few people could afford to get to know it, and I wasn’t one of them.
The spectacular capital of Sweden was matched by the spectacular cost of almost everything. Despite being on holiday, I was reduced to dining in fast food restaurants and drinking two beers per evening. One night I splashed out on more traditional fare in a proper restaurant. It advertised a “Swedish Delicacy - Roast Reindeer.” After eliciting an assurance from the staff that it wasn’t Rudolph, I ordered some. It tasted, not surprisingly, like a milder version of venison. I’d found budget accommodation in a highly unusual floating youth hostel, a converted sailing ship moored at another island. I was fortunate to get a dorm with a view, of the old town, through the portholes.
Sweden has been criticised as being the most regimented society in the democratic world. The continuous 40 year rule of the Social Democratic Party imposed 44% income tax as the norm, but this paid for hugely generous social welfare policies. It was unusual to walk around a capital and not see anyone begging or sleeping rough and Stockholm has also topped a travellers’ poll as Europe’s Most Honest City. After a Sunday afternoon amble around the Djurgarden park, which occupies most of yet another island, I came to a pedestrian crossing on the way back to my boat. Although there was no traffic approaching in either direction, a family of Swedes was dutifully awaiting permission to proceed from the green crossing signal (you don’t call it a green man in politically correct Scandinavia). Some people find this laughable, or even sinister, but maybe they were just teaching their children how not to get knocked down. When in Stockholm, as the Romans might say, do as the Stockholmers do, so I waited with them.
A reminder that one of the world’s safest and most well ordered nations wasn’t entirely perfect came in the shape of a typically understated memorial to the late Prime Minister, Olof Palme, at the place where he was shot dead after leaving a cinema with his wife in 1986. The man initially blamed had his conviction overturned on appeal and is now himself dead, so no one is currently held responsible for the murder. Like John F. Kennedy, suspects range from the CIA to the KGB, but the mad gunman theory remains the officially preferred explanation.
I bought a t-shirt displaying a storm tossed longboat and the words “Sweden - Land of the Vikings.” Given the Vikings’ reputation for behaviour which was, shall we say, not always admirable, it seemed odd that they should be referenced to promote the country in this way. I can’t imagine t-shirts in Poland saying “Land of the Vandals,” or in Japan saying “Land of the Kamikaze pilots.” I’m sure there are other examples.
But that was then and this is now. By common international consent, Sweden is one of the richest, safest, most peaceful and most egalitarian countries in which to live. It is all the more tragically inexplicable, then, that it really is known for having one of the planet’s highest suicide rates. Maybe it’s just that, in such a successful society, it is all the more difficult to come to terms with relative failure. Or, in an inversion of the old Frank Sinatra song. If I can’t make it there, I can’t make it anywhere.
And, indeed, it looked like a eugenicist’s dream. Almost everyone was tall without being too tall, slim without being too slim and appeared happy, healthy and wealthy. Bjorn Borg and Agnetha Faltskog look-alikes filled the busy, but not too busy, streets. It just shows how far a people can progress in a thousand years. Hagar the Horrible and his Viking hordes were nowhere to be seen.
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