Skansen preserves Sweden's disappearing traditions

By Lela E. Madjiah

STOCKHOLM (JP): One day barely counts when it's all the time one has to explore a new country. With so much to see and so many things to learn about, precious time can easily be wasted making up one's mind about where to go and what to look for.

I was lucky that on my last day in Stockholm, after completing a five-day work assignment, a newly found colleague from France urged me to accompany her to visit Skansen, the world's first open air museum in Djurgarden, Stockholm.

The short trip there (depending on where one stays) can be made by bus or tram. For the more adventurous, a boat trip will be far more exciting, although one has to prepare to queue due to its popularity among foreign tourists.

What strikes a visitor most about Skansen is its peaceful, neighborly atmosphere. Maybe its the presence of so many parents and their children strolling along the picturesque paths, many pushing their baby prams, that help create the mood.

Fathers lying in the sun, their toddlers running around them, shouting in delight as they discover a new game: swinging on a pine tree branch. Mothers trying to catch up with their kids who, in their eagerness to explore, seem not to mind the steep downhill gravel path. Grandmothers sitting quietly beside their grandfathers, watching young lives around them.

Those are, for me, the nicest things about Skansen. Unlike many modern theme parks, which are crowded with sophisticated toys and rides, Skansen allows families to be together, and at the same time learn something about Swedish traditions, history, flora and fauna.

There is a lot to learn at Skansen. Founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius, Skansen, meaning fortlet, is Sweden in miniature. At present, it has about 150 buildings of cultural and historical interest from various parts of Sweden, representing different periods and social conditions, from the Middle Ages to the present century.

Hazelius was a teacher and researcher in Nordic languages. During wide ranging travels in Sweden, he saw that traditional ways of life were fast disappearing as industrialization progressed. He had, therefore, as early as the 1870s, started to collect extensively in order to "rescue" this vanishing culture.

He had the objects put together in the form of tableau-type interiors, in a building in Drottninggatan (Queen Street) in the middle of Stockholm. These collections and displays formed the basis of the Nordiska museet, the building of which began in Lejonslatten in 1888.

But traditional museum interiors and displays were insufficient to meet the needs of Hazelius' vision of universal education. He wanted to strengthen the historical experience, to display whole houses furnished with traditional objects and with people in them in historic costume, as well as their farms.

For 10 hectic years, buildings from different parts of Sweden were reconstructed and furnished here. Farms were supplied with livestock and vegetation and habitats for wild animals were provided in the wild areas.

The focus of Hazelius' interest was on traditional farming culture and also on Lappish culture. Later, Skansen's activities were extended to include the way of life of the agricultural laborer and also of the upper classes, as well as folk movements and elementary schools. The different activities and living conditions of the town were included with the establishment of the town quarters in the 1930s and 1940s. In 1991, Skansen entered the industrial age with the addition of a small furniture factory and a mechanical engineering workshop.

Skansen tries to demonstrate Sweden in miniature, both in the built-up and natural landscape. Consequently, the Skane farm from the southernmost Swedish province is sited as far south as possible, surrounded by willows and beeches, while the Delsbo farm from the northern province of Halsingland lies to the north site, with its birches and pines. Sometimes the geography is a little askew, but the main aim is that the visitor should be able to move from south to north and experience the different provinces and types of buildings.

If activities at Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in East Jakarta are focused more on the cultural and artistic aspects of Indonesia, Skansen tries to give the visitor a taste of a past lifestyle: how bread was made decades ago, how the laundry was done when the washing machine was not yet around, how to weave your own clothes from flax fibers. Visitors can also see a glass workshop and a blacksmith and carpenter at work, which allows insight into how everyday things they take for granted were made.

The Bageriet (the bakery), for example, shows what a bakery looked like in the 1870s. Through the shop, originally from a house in Stockholm, was the room where flour was sifted and newly baked bread was set aside to cool. The actual bakery is dominated by a big oven, which takes nine baking plates, and the table, where the bread is rolled and shaped.

Another point of interest is the Alvros Farmstead, a typical Northern Swedish farm which comprises buildings from south- eastern Harjedalen.

The timber buildings are covered with birch bark and wooden roofs. The black, old timbers, especially under a glistening sun, speak of simple beauty.

The farm shows what a conservative peasant environment in Harjedalen might look like in the mid-19th century. In front of the leaf shade, several women in traditional costumes are grating flax into fine fibers as another works on a spinning wheel, turning the golden yarns into fine linen cloth.

About 50 meters in the back is the flax plants where more men, also in traditional costumes, are beating the plants for the same purpose.

Nearby, women and children in traditional attire are doing their laundry in a traditional way, placing the clothing in large pots of boiling water and stirring it with wooden poles before hanging the clothing on the rope to dry.

Further off are the farms where all the fowls, pigs, cows, goats and lambs are kept. Across from the animal farm is the Zoological Gardens, a treat for both children and adults. Among its occupants was a tiny black kitten. She was sleeping in her small basket when I arrived at her "home", decorated by colorful comfort teats hung in various places.

As Skansen contains the only zoo in Stockholm, classical zoo animals, such as monkeys, are exhibited in the Zoological Gardens, while the Scandinavian animals are to be found among the houses and farms that are in the center of Skansen.

Here, too, the animals are exhibited as Sweden in miniature: In the south are the deer and the herons from the deciduous forests and in the north, wolves and Scandinavian reindeer.

It was also Hazelius' intention to show not only the animals of the Scandinavian countryside, but also characteristic plants from different areas, both wild and cultivated.

Hazelius brought a large variety of wild plants to Skansen and had even greater success with the cultivated plants he had put in around the old buildings.

One of my favorite "corners" is the Petissan, the Little Cafe. Built at the end of the 17th century as a wing house at Drottninggatan in Stockholm, it was a well-known cafe which was frequented by students. Nowadays, Petissan is once more a cafe where food is also served outside in the small garden, a much- loved oasis in the summer.