Hi, my dear friends !

This letter is to tell you about Sweden and my trip to Stockholm to see it and visit Sussi !

It was great to see her and... someone else! I'll tell you later in this letter who exactly;)

I have a very magnificent impression of the country. It's like a small country in old mythological Nordic fairy tails. It is found on numerous small Irelands each of which still save its own atmosphere, it is a little bit Gothic in its architecture, the sky is never without white clouds though it was sunny most of the time I was there, Swedish culture still contains a lot of pre-Christian traditions until nowadays. That all creates mysterious even elfish feelings.

These creatures are something between brownies (not cookies but kind hobgoblins who live in every house and help or punish their family according to their behaviour) and small Santas.

Moreover there are numerous castles all over Sweden. One of them is near Sussi's parents' house to which I was kindly invited with all the Polish-Swedish hospitality :) I was entrusted to drive an old Volvo from the year 1989 to go there.

Wikipedia about Skokloster Castle : it is located on Lake Mälaren between Stockholm and Uppsala. It was built in the Baroque style between 1654 and 1676 by the wealthy military commander and count Carl Gustaf Wrangel. After Wrangel died, the castle was owned by the Brahe family, the von Essens and after 1967 by the Swedish government.

The interiors of the castle are considered to be especially well preserved, despite being made of original material much of which is more than 300 years old and in a building without modern heating in a cold climate. It is not known exactly why the building preserves textiles and furniture so well, but it is thought to relate to the unusually slow changes in temperature during seasons.The castle is a monument to the Swedish Age of Greatness, a period in the middle of the 17th century when Sweden expanded to became one of the major powers in Europe. The death of Wrangel in 1676 meant that the castle was never truly completed. The Brahe family who inherited the castle after Wrangels death, had their own family castles and did not complete the interiors. Thus the large banqueting hall remains in the same condition as the builders left it in the summer of 1676, complete with their tools. Skokloster Castle is the only building in Europe with a complete 17th-century building site of equal authenticity. Some rooms in the castle are unchanged since the time when the castle was first built.

Another thing which makes it a fairy tale kingdom is the Swedish royal family. Though they act as normal people shopping in usual supermarkets without any bodyguards and marrying fitness instructors, they are still in politics representing the country and they live in palaces, or at least they did until their children haven't moved to New-York as representatives or to their own apartments in the city.

Here is the major palace in the centre of Stockholm which is very beautiful. There you have the feeling that the palace is still used for leaving despite the fact that it is all so in gold and baroque, because it is designed in a very homish way strange as it may sound.

The pictures are from the Internen because it is not allowed to make photos in the palace.

The Bernadotte apartments

The White Sea Hall -  banqueting room

Council Room - ministers' cabinet meeting room, when those meetings are chaired by the king

Room with contemporary design. Don't remember what it is used for.

Info from Wikipedia : The offices of the King, the other members of the Swedish Royal Family, and the offices of the Royal Court of Sweden are located here. The palace is used for representative purposes by the King whilst performing his duties as the head of state. The actual residance of King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia is at Drottningholm Palace outside Stockholm. The first building on this site was a fortress with a core tower built in the 13th century. The fortress grew to a palace, named Tre Kronor ("Three Crowns"). But much of the palace was destroyed in a fire on May 7, 1697. The damaged palace was rebuilt, and work continued for 63 years.

In Stockholm there is so far one tram line (another one is being built) which goes from the center to the most expansive island Djurgården, where people live in their own small family castles situated in the park and surrounded by verdure and quietness. Among modern trams there are some very old models as the one above conducted by men with gray beard and young guys in uniform caps. I had pants full of happiness !

It is Justice in City Hall. She is with big eyes to see everything and with big feet never to fall which is important for her.

 

We went there together with Sussi's parents Taisia and Benkt and cousin of Taisia from Poland with her husband who served in the army and now makes reglaments on education through the European Commission.

At this moment I feel lost and I am afraid I will never be able to put all my impressions about Sweden in this letter even if it was a very long one. That's why I will restrict myself to the format of a detailed but not chronological or anylogical photoalbum =)

These are some of my photoworks inspired by Sweden...

Boats, boats and boats... There are like people, each one is different and they populate this country. 

People even live on them.

And make them look like ducks

Stockholm is not a gray northern city as people think. It's all shades of colors !

Some evenings we had a rest watching historic movies and eating the Ikea cake. We don't have this one in Moscow and I loved it !

Nature

 Architecture

Stockholm subway is something really scary...:)

This is the only narrow street like this in Stockholm 

We had so much pleasure walking around numerous parks of Stockholm and Sussi opened a lot of beautiful places for her to go and relax or as places for dates ;)

Clubing !

In Sweden there are a LOT of handsome boys. I was just having great pleasure from just observing them :)

But when we went to a club it turned out it was so easy to get most of them. At the same time they are not annoying. There are always up to 4 guys around waiting for your eye contact, if they get it they come up. Only once a guy came up to me and started very thoroughly drilling in how beautiful and great I was but we escaped as much thoroughly from him :)

After the club :)

Archipelago Skärgården

A small and cute island at the Archipelago Skärgården where we would have liked to spend our childhood :) All the houses there are just an idealistic place to live - by the water, small and cute built from wood and painted with different pastel colors, trees and flowers at every garden and every window with candls on it make you dream of what unreal fabled live they have there...

We didn't know what to do and we just walked around as in a museum of ideal houses. We met an old lady on a bike wearing a hat and a striped sundress, her look was from 50s and she fitted the atmosphere of the town so much! You can see her from the back on the left in the picture. We asked her what we could see on the island and she advised us to go to a church where she was going at the moment to listen to a small concert.

They were singing Swedish songs too and I liked them! That all was very touching :)

And finally we, Sussi's friends and ... !

And Kristiina !

By happy coincidence she was visiting her relatives in the South of Stockholm with her brothers and their wives. She came to Stockholm for half a day to take a boat back to Finland, but unfortunately Sussi was working at this time so we met just two of us.

As Edoardo asked us to send him a postcard with words from all three of us we went to some Photografica museum which was close to us to write Kristiina's message to him on a little sheet of paper :)

In the end I want to say that it was a wonderful trip and I was very glad to see Sussi, Kristiina and Sweden from which I have very very nice impressions maybe just thanks to Sussi :)

Thanks to Susan for her hospitality! I am waiting for you, Sussi, in Moscow next July!!!

Miss you!