Welcome /r/Polska! Today we are hosting /r/Polska for a little cultural and question exchange session!

[u/lynxlynxlynx-]

Welcome Polish friends and happy Constitution Day! Please select the "Polish Friend" flair and ask away!

Today we our hosting our friends from /r/Polska! Please come and join us and answer their questions about Sweden and the Swedish way of life! Please leave top comments for /r/Polska users coming over with a question or comment and please refrain from trolling, rudeness and personal attacks etc. Moderation out side of the rules may take place as to not spoil this friendly exchange. The reddiquette applies and will be moderated after in this thread.

At the same time /r/Polska is having us over as guests! Stop by in this thread and ask a question, drop a comment or just say hello!

Enjoy!

/The moderators of /r/sweden & /r/polska

^{For previous exchanges please see the wiki.}

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Vi tar en kortare resa ner på kontinenten och stannar till i Polen ett land att inte förglömma! Polen är ett land vars historia är djupt rotat hur Europa ser ut idag och Sverige "bidrog" med den så kallade "svenska syndafloden" då Karl X Gustav gav sig ner för att kriga lite och se till att ryssen inte tog för stor del av kakan! En annan kung som tyckte Polen verkade vara trevligt var Sigismund III Vasa som tog tronen och blev kung över landet. Detta är saker vi lärt oss i skolbänken om Polen men hur mycket vet vi egentligen om kontemporära Polen? Passa på och ta tillfället i akt och fråga ut dom! Som alltid ber vi er raportera opassande kommentarer och lämna top kommentarer i denna tråd till användare från /r/Polska! Ha så kul!

[u/Christ_on_a_bike]

Hi, friends. Do you consider Poland your neighbour? Have you ever thought of Poland as a tourist destination? Are Scandinavian winters really that harsh, or is it just a stereotype?

[u/lynxlynxlynx- → u/Christ_on_a_bike]

The continent is kinda detached in our minds when it comes to neighboring countries.

Have you ever thought of Poland as a tourist destination?

Yes, and I've been! Had an excellent time in Gdansk and Warsaw! For sure going back to see Krakow! I think I had variations of pirogi every day which I couldn't get enough of!

Edit: Also the beaches up there were top notch actually! I can see why Sopot is a very popular summer destination!

[u/ur_internet_friend → u/Christ_on_a_bike]

Siemka.

• I saw a survey a few years ago called something like "kulturbarometer", one of the questions was which culture/people we feel the closest too. Naturally there was first the "honorary Swedes" (hederssvenskar was the word used) like the Nordic and Germanic countries. Then at the top of the list of all other Latin and Slavic and rest of the world countries was Poland. So except for some in the older generation who remembers Polish travelling "art salesmen", I would say we definitely feel that Poles are close good neighbors.

• A bunch of my friends have visited Poland as tourists, me myself I've taken the boat to Gdansk & Gdynia and visited Marienburg/Malbork, and of course I've had a flight layover in Warsaw. I ended up working in Romania but it was very close I ended up in Poland too.

• Sweden is very long from north to south, I would imagine in the south you get "coastal winters" like you can imagine in the north of France and the UK. In the north you get real wolf winters with -45 and total darkness, except for the aurora borealis.

[u/FaenK → u/Christ_on_a_bike]

Never a neightbour, but always a friend against the Russians. There are the good ol' Country Balls comic strip where the Poland-Ball always comes in, if the russians are in the stripe as well, with a tank and screams "KURWA" at them, nuking the shit out of them. I just love that. I have a few faces I know from school that are studying in Poland at the moment, actually.

Regarding the winters I would say it depends on where you are. I am from the northern parts along the coast lines, and there it is not very uncommon with -30C and meters of snow. If that is harsh or not is up to you :P

[u/Cairneann]

Hallå svedditörer!

I would like to know how many people in Sweden are actually pro-monarchy. Is this a topic that is really discussed in Swedish politics? Are there any groups that would like to end the monarchy in Sweden?

As an aside question, is it hard to meet the King? Does he go in the morning to the bakery around the corner and buy his kanelbullar to eat with his morning coffee or is it a little bit more complicated?

[u/Inclol → u/Cairneann]

The monarchy enjoys big support. Beyond a sensationalist leftist tabloid, fringe leftists and a miniscule republican minority its not something that's discussed in general.

It'd be a much more complicated as he has a tight and regulated schedule of activities. That being said he sometimes be seen in the real world.

[u/FaenK → u/Cairneann]

I have bo idea of how many actually is pro-monarchy, but I know I am. Not only is it a cultural heritage we still have, but also a great way of giving the country a face as well. Good PR, so to speak.

Are there any groups that would like to end the monarchy in Sweden?

Yes, most of the left wingers dislike the monarchy as it is a part of the old patriarchy/noble class structure etc etc. Also many others believe it costs us much money, but I think we gain an equal amount of money because of the king, as he is good for outward relations between our country and the rest of the world.

I think it can be difficult to have an officiall meeting with the king. But I think it wouldn't be that hard to see him in person as he attends quite a lot of things, whether it be grand openings of a new huge bridge or midsummer presentations or whatever.

[u/ur_internet_friend → u/Cairneann]

Everyone I know likes and want to keep the monarchy, but then again I am from the country side and was in the military, maybe more cosmopolitan Swedes feel otherwise. But I would say it's not discussed, the king just "is".

I think that the royal wedding a few years ago showed that the Swedish people overwhelmingly are in favor of the monarchy, with something ridiculous like 1 million people travelling to or being on the streets of Stockholm to celebrate the wedding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzgYGWI5Flo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdGy4iqMfg0 <- Polish name at 8:15?

[u/k43r]

Well, in Polish right wing media there is common topic of arab immigration in sweden and how they do all the bad stuff there. How true is it?

[u/[deleted] → u/k43r]

I don't think it's very true... but it's hard to say. Sweddit is in my experience pretty notoriously in the anti-immigration camp, just so you know.

[u/ur_internet_friend → u/k43r]

It's definitely a problem, but on the internet it's exaggerated and Sweden is used as a bad example, from what I've seen I would place France, the UK, Belgium, and the Netherlands above us in the "badness scale". But Poland hopefully will not follow our example.

[u/Christ_on_a_bike]

Give me one negative and one positive sterotype of polish people.

[u/tehftw]

What are some Swedish-only Internet memes that I would probably miss due to my lack of language?

[u/[deleted] → u/tehftw]

Aw, no one answered you :(

I can't speak for all of the internet, but for sweddit, just take a look at the top rated posts here. I think the main thing we like to do here is upvote ridiculous posts to r/all only to confuse non-Swedish speakers, like when on april 1st someone posted like 10 different wikipedia links to different Swedish kings and they got about 3000 upvotes each. We also have "rövarspråket", not an internet meme at all (much older than that), but it works great for confusing foreigners since google translate doesn't work on it.

A lot of things have been carried over here from r/swarje (our version of r/murica), like using välfärd (welfare) in the same way americans sometimes uses freedom. Or a sort of over the top almost worship of our king, or knugen as we like to call him. Or hating on Denmark every chance we get.

Sweddit also, apparently, has a fetish for bad puns, which are naturally difficult to explain to foreigners. r/sweden/top/ is full of them.

We also have some various memes inspired by the media and/or politics in Sweden, like using words like deathdrugnazi or similar to describe anyone that does something that society thinks is "bad", like voting for SD, or pirating movies, or sitting next to someone on the bus.. you get what I mean, haha. Originally it made fun of how media like to exaggerate things.

Similar thing with these giant check-list things, example (can't be bothered to find a better example, sorry). For some reason Swedish tabloids has taken to using them in excessive amount on their frontpage, so redditors sometimes use them satirically in the comments here.

Are most likely a lot of things I've missed, but that's some at least :)

[u/Danjoh → u/tehftw]

If you're willing to stretch memes into "viral videos that are often quoted"... Here's some.

Skogsturken - Who threw that?!
Fan va coolt - Bus went off the road, alternative version
STEEEEFAN - Co-driver is not impressed by his driver
Ansiktsburk - This is probably among the first things I saw on internet in mid/late 90s, lyrics are the closest sounding swedish words and make little to no sense at all
Knäckehäxan -"Sluta jiddra börja trolla" (Stop babbling and do your magic) is still quoted today, even tho most have forgotten where it came from.

[u/Bifobe]

Hello. I have two questions, if you don't want to answer both, just pick the one you like better ;)

1. How do you (and your fellow countrymen) feel about the social democratic legacy in Sweden? Do you feel that your country is moving away from that model? Should it?

2. What steps does Sweden take to integrate immigrants into its society? How successful do you feel these measures are?

[u/imoinda → u/Bifobe]

1. I feel that we've got the social democrats to thank for our modern welfare state, and there are tendencies to move away from that model, though it hasn't really happened yet. But I think it's a trend that you can see all over (western?) Europe at present - better healthcare for people who pay/have an expensive insurance; less support if you are in financial trouble, etc.

2. We haven't done enough to integrate immigrants into Swedish society, mostly because we're overwhelmed by the great number of immigrants. I do think both we and all other European countries should take in as many immigrants as we do, and I hope we'll get a decent integration scheme going soon.

[u/ben13022]

Have you ever heard or read anything about the Swedish Deluge in Poland?

[u/c0xb0x → u/ben13022]

Yes, where we pillaged our way through part of your country like an opportunistic infection and stole vast amounts of your treasures and art which we proudly exhibit in our museums today.

[u/Platypuskeeper → u/ben13022]

Yes. But it's not like there are any romantic illusions. My high school history teacher basically put it "In the 30 Years War we fought valiantly to defend Protestantism... Just kidding, we just used that as an excuse to go down to the continent and grab whatever we could"

That said, it was a bit silly of the Polish kings to keep pretending they were kings of Sweden too. But we can't really complain there since our guy claimed to be King of of the Wends (kind of ancestors of the Poles) all the way up until 1973!

[u/Hasse-b]

My hitchhiker experience is about 70% polish people, usually quite young (~20-25) which are travelling around Scandinavia, this is in Norway so not really on topic.

But anyway, each time i'm a bit surprised on how kind and open most people i've met from Poland are. Do you feel that is reflecting the typical polish people + the alcohol/smoke habits?

[u/Makdaam]

[comment wiped due to Reddit's API ToS change]

[u/ben13022]

What are some typical Swedish delicacy? :)

[u/Inclol → u/ben13022]

A few; Semla,[kanelbullar](http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanelbulle], gravlax, renskav, inlagd sill et.al.

[u/JesusIsMyLord666 → u/ben13022]

Gravlax is a typical Swedish/Norwegian dish. Its raw salmon cured in salt and sugar.