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Sunday, February 02, 2003

By Marilyn Posner

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- All of Scandinavia was once buried under an ice cap that began receding only 10,000 years ago. The melting ice cap created the Stockholm archipelago, some 24,000 islands, islets and rocks extending nearly 90 miles along the coast of the Baltic Sea.

This year, Stockholm is celebrating its founding 750 years ago. The modern city is situated on 14 of those islands, which are connected by nearly 50 bridges. Many of Stockholm's streets seem to lead to a palace or slott, a large church or kyrka, or a museum or museet -- so many that a five-day visit is not enough to see them all.

But it can be a start. Here is a quick look at several of the more prominent of these institutions.

Skansen

To get an overview of the living history of Sweden, we visited Skansen, the world's first open-air museum. Founded in 1891 by Artur Hazelius on the city's island of Djurgarden (loosely translated as "animal park"), it's a collection of Swedish houses, farmsteads and other buildings that were transported here from around the country.

Docents in period costume describe the lives of Swedes from various periods in Swedish history. The docents, many of whom speak English, are often as impressive as the exhibits.

We met our first docent as we entered a very low-ceilinged hut, which was built not by Swedes but by early Finns who had been encouraged to settle in the then-uninhabited deep forests of western Sweden and make them productive.

The semi-nomadic Finns were experts in "slash and burn" farming, according to our docent, a 50-ish anthropology doctoral candidate at the University of Stockholm. In Finland, they had lived in the forest, where they would spend one year clearing an area and one year drying the wood to burn, and then would grow a crop of hearty rye. They had only a couple of good harvests before they gave the field back to the forest and moved on.

	If you go ... Stockholm, Sweden side title

Their huts had a small hearth/oven in which wood burned during the day. The hut had no chimney, although there was an outlet hole on the far side of the room away from the oven. The smoke rose and collected in a layer just below the ceiling, causing the ceiling timbers to blacken and a haze to form at the top of the room. Inhabitants couldn't stand up completely or their heads literally would be in the clouds -- of smoke. At night, the fire went out, but the oven retained enough residual heat to keep the family warm throughout their sleep.

Another site, Skansen's historic pharmacy, was staffed during our visit by an unemployed British-Swedish archaeologist. He was chatty and even tried to find an 18th-century remedy for my backache, although leeches didn't seem to be the way I wanted to go.

In Skansen's large manor house, the home of a nobleman, a professional musician was describing the tunes of the time, and performing music by Carl Michael Bellman, songs that every Swedish child learns. Wearing a period costume and wig, he was the only docent we encountered who said his profession was teaching and performing in museums.

The view from the top of the red-brick tower in the middle of this "village" gave us a good perspective of the entire Skansen park. Reaching the top of this six-story building required either climbing the narrow circular staircase or taking the intimate, four-person elevator to the cafe on the fourth floor and then venturing further up the stairs.

The middle-aged man working at the nearby cafe admitted that he was a furniture salesman, merely helping his friends who own the cafe.

In addition to the traditional buildings, Skansen also features the traditional animals of Sweden, such as the hearty cattle who can stand the extreme cold of winters, their wide hindquarters giving them an ungainly look. Elsewhere in Skansen are more animals, such as bears, as well as Sweden's only aquarium and a petting zoo.

We passed a tall man who had a white beard and a pack on his back, from which hung tin items and wicker baskets.

"Ask me who I am," he said.

OK, "Who are you?"

"I'm a peddler and off to the house up the hill, where there is a wealthy man. The farmers down here in the valley don't have much money, so I have to trade with them. The last one gave me spoons that I hope to sell later today for money."

Good answer.

There are several working shops in Skansen, including a bakery with a long line of tired visitors outside taking in the aromas while awaiting their turn to buy the tasty treats.

An old wooden church, still in use, had a sturdy, rustic look outside, but indoors it was dark and dreary. There were large chandeliers. For Sunday morning services and for the many weddings held there throughout the year, the chandeliers and sconces that line the walls are lit by candles.

Nobel Museum

A more modern Stockholm site of great interest is the Nobel Museum in the former Stock Exchange Building in the city's Gamla Stan (Old Town). Many of Stockholm's museums are in buildings that were formerly churches or banks or had some other use in a prior life.

Alfred Nobel, who made his fortune inventing and manufacturing dynamite, had the idea of giving annual awards to those making outstanding contributions to the world. Today those awards are presented in the fields of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, economics and peace.

Museum visitors may view short films about the prizes or enter another room, don earphones and listen to the actual Nobel acceptance speeches in the winners' voices. For example, Isaac Bashevis Singer describes 10 reasons why he wrote for children, one being: "Children read books, not reviews." He also said he wrote in the dead language of Yiddish because Yiddish is the language of ghosts. "I believe in the resurrection," Singer said. "And when these ghosts come back, the first thing they will ask is, 'Are there any new Yiddish books?'"

I also listened to a radio interview with William Faulkner, who claimed to have been a farmer who wrote, not the other way around. He didn't know if he were a better farmer or a better writer, except that he had never won a Nobel Prize for farming. He added that it was his first time speaking into a microphone, and he had no intentions of buying a radio. "They are too noisy," he said, adding that he liked to have more control over what he heard and preferred a "good Victrola."

In the main lobby, displays call attention to special winners who had a particular impact at the time of their awards. I learned that the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize winner was German journalist/pacifist Carl von Ossietzky. At the announcement of his award, he was placed in a concentration camp until his death. Hitler had declared that no German would accept a Nobel Prize and that he would initiate his own prizes. A TV monitor set into the floor under a display of newspaper clippings about the incident shows Hitler announcing his new prizes.

The Great Synagogue

On Friday evening, we sought out a place to pray and found the Great Synagogue, dedicated in 1870 with its exquisite Moorish-influenced interior. Behind the synagogue on huge stone tablets are inscribed the names of 8,500 Holocaust victims, all relatives or friends of Stockholm Jews. The tablets were dedicated in 1998 by Carl XVI Gustaf, King of Sweden.

We scanned the lists, row after row, seeking last names similar to that of family and friends, not expecting, or at least hoping not to find anyone we knew. We didn't find any relatives, but we did find the name of a man born nearly a century ago who had the same name as my husband, David Posner. Although we, like many we know, had lost family in that dark time in history, finding such a name was disconcerting.

Inside, we found a wonderfully ornate room with beautifully carved railings lining the second floor balcony and a magnificent, red wine-colored drape in front of the Ark.

A Bar Mitzvah boy was leading the service that evening, occasionally straying from his Hebrew prayers to make page announcements in Swedish and English.

The rabbi, Philip Spectre, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., welcomed us to his flock. He became the religious leader of the Great Synagogue four years ago, after spending 34 years in Israel. An affiliate of the Conservative movement of Judaism, he was drawn to the unique challenge of the Great Synagogue, which strives to fulfill the religious needs of both Conservative and Orthodox Jews in Sweden.

Because his Swedish is still a work in progress, the rabbi's sermon was delivered primarily in English. He spoke of the "mitzvah" (good deed) that should be done in public. But in Sweden, "we are told to be careful, not to wear kippot [men's ritual head coverings] in public because it is not safe." He seemed torn between encouraging his congregants to display their Jewish heritage while they go about their good deeds in the outside world, and warning them that being Jewish in Sweden may not allow one to feel secure in the greater community.

To illustrate the point, concrete barriers lined the curb out front of the synagogue to prevent vehicles from crashing into the building. Police guarded the building's perimeter.

In contrast, when we visited places such as Storkyrkan (Stockholm Cathedral), where Swedish monarchs were crowned, we found barrier-free access for tourists, except during services. The 14th-century structure Storkyrkan, with its beautiful architecture and its life-size sculpture of St. George and the Dragon, is not to be missed, although I don't know how they decided what is life-size for a dragon.

The Vasa Museum

Recognizable from the outside by its three ship masts, the Vasa Museum is the final resting place of the ill-fated flagship of the king's fleet, a hugely top-heavy vessel that sank in 1628, having sailed less than a mile before capsizing. Although salvage operations brought up some of the guns in the mid-1660s, the ship itself was not raised from its muddy resting place for 333 years.

I'm no naval expert, but I could have foretold that it would never float.

The ship is very tall, and its lowest gun portals were set much too close to the water line. Most of the ship would have to be out of the water, meaning there was little room for ballast to balance it. The ship was literally covered in carvings and statuary. It definitely belongs more in a museum than on the water.

The ship has been remarkably well-preserved, with areas that needed to be reproduced in lighter shades of wood. There are many levels to which visitors can climb to view the Vasa from different vantage points. Also, there are displays on the life of 17th-century sailors throughout the museum.

Elsewhere, interactive computer stations let visitors rebuild the vessel and discover why it was fated to sink in a strong wind. However, I learned that it did meet the king's deadline for launching. There are indications that the ship builders also knew it would sink and canceled some important tests which would have proven that.

But, then as now, deadlines are deadlines, and kings are not to be denied.

Marilyn A. Posner is a Washington, Pa.-based freelance writer.