From Russia with Love

The Church of Our Savior 

on the Spilled Blood

Built where Emperor Alexander II 

was assassinated in March 1881

Without family in Stockholm to keep us close to hearth and home, on Christmas Day we boarded a Rossiya Airlines flight to St. Petersburg, Russia for the holidays.  Helen had made our travel arrangements though a travel agency, Inventus.

Inventus was top-notch handling flights, hotel bookings and the processing for our Russian visas.  It was a marvelous adventure!

Inventus’ guided tours were in Swedish so we assembled our own tours.  The first was a six-hour personal city walking tour with a twenty-something English-speaking native named Eugene.  He showed us well-known tourist attractions as well as provided us a backstage glimpse of the city.  City natives, we learned, navigate the well laid out street grid of St. P by ducking into alleyways and courtyards.

Key, Lighter, Umbrella Service

Unseen from the main streets is another world of apartments and shops.  Our favorite shop - of a different era - was one occupied by a grumpy entrepreneur who replicated keys, fixed umbrellas and refilled cigarette lighters.

We visited the green and white Baroque style Hermitage Museum, also known as the Winter Palace, the residence for many Russian tsars.

Winter Palace/Hermitage
at 10:30 am
Still very dark outside

It became a museum in 1764 and now has over 2.7 million items, of which only a fraction is on display at any one time.  We wandered the museum from the third floor down to avoid the crowd that assembled at the 10:30 opening time.  Early in the day, we consumed our quota of French, Spanish, Flemish and Italian art.  We finished our tour admiring exquisite antiquities art from the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.  Oh my.

Catherine Palace

The following day we journeyed via public transportation to Pushkin, located 20 kilometers south to visit the Catherine Palace.  Named for the wife of Peter the Great, the palace is simply spectacular.  The gold onion domes and the blue and gold leaf exterior capture your attention immediately upon arrival.  The great hall rivals or surpasses the grandeur of Versailles’ hall of mirrors.  We toured the palace in mandatory slipover shoe coverings, walked the spacious grounds, had lunch in a nearby restaurant and ventured back to St. P again by public bus and subway to our hotel. 

Boxing Kangaroo at State Circus

Over the next two days we wandered the city, visited the Peter and Paul Fortress on the west side of the Neva River, attended a ballet performance of Sleeping Beauty at the Mikhailovsky Theater and were entertained by goats, a kangaroo, dogs, cats, monkeys and dancing bears at a performance of the State Circus of St. Petersburg.  Lonely Planet travellers ranked the circus #473 of 499 on things to do in St. Pete.  Clearly that gang of travelers failed to appreciate the humor in "A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants."

NYE dinner in the Victoria Restaurant in the Taleon Imperial Hotel

New Year’s Eve started for us with marvelous authentic Russian cuisine at the Taleon Imperial Hotel on the Moika.  Following dinner, we reveled in the folly and joy of mingling with 100,000 of our closest friends in the square in front of the Winter Palace.  The tradition to toast the New Year with champagne and fireworks was faithfully followed.  “Dosvedanya 2011!”

Our Third Apartment in Stockholm

So why have you moved so many times, you ask? Finding housing in Stockholm is very, very difficult.

When we first arrived in Stockholm we stayed in a couple's apartment while they were on summer holiday (7 weeks). That gave us enough time to learn about the city and find a suitable longer term place to live.

When we started looking for our next apartment, we came across an ad placed by Per and Monica for their place in southern Södermalm. They wanted to rent their apartment for a year while they went on a year-long sailing trip in the Caribbean. Unfortunately, they weren't leaving until November, but we could move in in October and they would stay with their son because they wanted to get their tenants settled before they left.

We were extremely lucky to find a young woman who was renting her apartment by the week. We rented our second apartment for nine weeks, then moved into Per and Monica's apartment the middle of October. We think the biggest deciding factor of choosing us over the 100+ other people who inquired is the fact we volunteered to take care of their cat when they told us that none of their family wanted to take her. Having a pet in our lives again was a big plus for us!

We moved into our third furnished apartment and are comfortably settled. We have learned how to easily get from our apartment to anywhere in the city (and beyond) either by walking, taking the T-bana (subway), a bus or commuter train, boat or plane. There is so much public transportation here! So far we have not missed having a car.

Business travel for Jay has ceased until the new year and we are taking advantage of the daylight hours (and there aren't that many at this time of the year - it's dark by 3:30 in the afternoon!) to make a video of our new home.

We hope you enjoy it!

God Jul In All Its Forms

Christmas traditions, like lights strung outside or decorating a tree brought indoors, a child’s photo on Santa’s knee, cups of shared eggnog and the many other Christmas images of sugar plums that dance in our heads are absorbed over a lifetime of easy and repeated encounters.  Our absorption of Swedish Christmas traditions is, on the other hand, a rather abrupt encounter with the unknown. We, however, are doing quite well with God Jul (Merry Christmas) in its many forms here.

Last weekend we walked to nearby Gama Stan (Old Town) and mingled with a multitude of Swedish Yuletide shoppers at the Big Christmas Market on the Square (Stortorgets Julmarknad). This outdoor market fills Stockholm’s oldest town square with traditionally red painted sheds that sell homemade sausages, mustards and jams and other foods and wares to brighten a Swedish home for the holidays.  This square is located right in front of Sweden’s Nobel Museum. 

Nobel Laureates, who were to arrive shortly as part of their Oslo/Stockholm celebratory tour, typically visit the museum before settling into a banquet at Stockholm’s Stadshuset (City Hall).  Save for vans of security personnel and a helicopter whirling in fixed location above the square, these Nobel events were outside our immediate interest. We were focused on purchasing a traditional Christmas Goat.

A julbock or Christmas Goat, we have learned, is one of the oldest Scandinavian and Northern European Yule symbols. Associations with the slaughter of a goat for a Germanic pagan festival or with the pre-Christian legend of the Norse god Thor riding in his sky chariot drawn by two goats have long faded.  The Julbock is now just a Christmas decoration. Christmas goats come in various sizes usually between 6 and 14 inches high, but are universally made of straw.  

Many julbocks appear as Christmas ornaments in shop windows. However, since 1966 the people of Gävle, just north of Stockholm, have tossed proportion to the wind and have erected an enormous straw julbock on the town square. Unfortunately, vandals torching the huge straw goat is another Christmas tradition that accompanies the display. The little straw goat we purchased now stands safe from wandering arsonists on a window shelf. 

In Sweden no journey to Christmas would be complete without a celebration of Lucia.  Kinda surprised us, too.  Celebrated on 13-Dec, Lucia commemorates St. Lucia who was a 4^th century Christian martyr.  The commemoration takes the form of a procession of singers lead by a young girl in a white gown and red sash wearing a crown of lit candles on her head. The candles symbolize the fire that refused to take St. Lucia's life when she was sentenced to be burned.

We didn’t attend the largest Sweden Lucia concert at the Globe Auditorium, but partook in a ceremony sponsored in the World Trade Center building where Jay’s office is located. We sat in appreciation as lovely voices filled the large atrium.  But nothing in our past connected us to the event. Jay’s speculation that many of the Swedes who sat with us were filled with rising childhood emotions was confirmed when his native born Swedish office manager came up to us and remarked, “Oh, tears were just rolling down my cheeks.”  

We learn something new here every day.

We are now in the final preparation for a Christmas party we are hosting at our apartment.  Soon Swedes, Americans and Swedish-Americans will mingle in our home and share good cheer in wonderful traditional holiday spirit that clearly has universal appeal.  God Jul.

God Bless Us, Everyone...Including Ringo

For us, Christmas comes with established traditions that include stringing lights on a real Christmas tree and having the kids fill the house with joy as we share a marvelous meal together. 



Of course, no Christmas would be complete without  curling up on the sofa with bowl of popcorn and letting our spirits be lifted as Jim Stewart and Donna Reed regale us with a Norman Rockwell-ish Christmas story as we watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” for the millionth time.  Those traditions, however, are on temporary hold as we celebrate Christmas in our new Swedish home here in Stockholm.

Not all is unfamiliar, however!  We had the opportunity to catch a wonderful live performance of Charles Dickens’ 1843 classic, “A Christmas Carol” at the Maxim Theater. We believe this performance “presented in English” is a modern day Stockholm Yuletide tradition. The theater was filled with a cross section of Swedes ranging from clusters of 10 year old boys to gray-haired seniors. English is so widely spoken in Stockholm that an English language theater performance is no barrier to attracting a broad array of Swedes.

The presentation was top-notch and we enjoyed the familiar retelling of Jacob Marley’s warning to Ebenezer Scrooge that three spirits from past, present and future would visit him to propel him to amend his earthly Scrooge-like ways.

We also discovered that we hold a bit of common history with the Maxim Theater, just off Karlaplan in trendy Östermalm.  

As with most of our generation, we clustered around the TV in February 1964 and watched Ed Sullivan, amid screaming and swooning teenagers, introduce the Beatles. Well, a few months before that “really big show” the Beatles played in the very theater in which we sat.

Built in 1945, the theater was originally a radio theater called the Karlaplansstudion.  In October 1963, a new musical group called the Beatles stood on the very stage now occupied by a repentant Scrooge and strummed guitars, pounded drums and shook mop-like hair in a refrain of “Yeah, yeah, yeah” that would become an emblematic common link for a generation that today is closing in on retirement.

The Youtube video below shows the Beatles concert performed in Karlaplansstudion on October 23,1964. We dare you not to sing along!

The Thanks in Thanksgiving

Americans were just starting their morning stirrings on Thanksgiving Day when the doors of Stockholm’s City Mission (Stadsmission) opened to welcome the homeless and hungry to an American fare of turkey, sweet potatoes, dressing and homemade pies. This Thanksgiving feast, the third since 2008, sponsored by the American Club of Sweden,  reflects the mission of the American Club to “promote the American spirit of hospitality and cooperation in Sweden.” Together with members from the American Women’s Club of Sweden, about a dozen people cheerfully worked in the kitchen peeling sweet potatoes, making stuffing, washing dishes as well as slicing and dicing whenever slicing and dicing was required.  It felt good.

Caren and Helen

The American Club provided funds for the food with additional donations from the Hilton Hotel. The Hilton, host to the American Club’s monthly Third Thursday evening social gathering, has a special relationship with the Club. We were glad to have three representatives come with cheesecakes and share the meal with us.

Sharing this treasured national tradition with strangers was significant, given that not a single Swedish soul at the dinner table had a clue what Thanksgiving was all about.

The story of Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock in 1620 was recounted in Swedish. The tale of surviving a harsh winter and the show of gratitude to helpful Native American Indians was proclaimed at the first Thanksgiving dinner. Diners at Stadsmission put down their forks and listened respectfully to the story, some indicated their appreciation of the explanation of the meal, then all returned to the food and conversations at their tables. Before leaving, many also expressed their appreciation with "mycket bra!" (very good!).

Ulrika and Germaine

Of course, it is not important for the homeless and the hungry at the Thanksgiving table to understand the motivation of their benefactors.  What does seem important is that a long standing American tradition brought all of us together for a memorable shared experience.  

Through the years Thanksgiving takes on various meanings for each American. It begins as children with treks to the homes of relatives, then as an adult and/or parent taking on the responsibility to provide both home and meal.  Given years to absorb the tempo of the holiday, it just becomes part of the natural turn of events. Here in Sweden we are removed from that seamless flow of family gatherings and the smell of turkey and savory dressing roasting in the oven. We felt blessed to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday spirit with our friends.

We have also observed that a society without Thanksgiving has no speed bump on its headlong rush to Christmas. The gearing up for Christmas commercialization appears here to run in parallel with the early arrival of darkness in mid-November. Now with Thanksgiving behind us, we too are emotionally engaged in the Christmas spirit, enjoying the decorations and many Advent lights and candles everywhere, bustling about in common purpose with the Swedes.  God Jul! (Merry Christmas!)

Adventljusstake