Strolling through Stockholm makes visitors fall in love with Sweden; this is the side visible when disembarking from the ferry that brings tourists from the east to Stockholm. To settle here, one needs to empty more than one credit card.
Walk through Stockholm, and you will meet Russians only in the center, shopping. Russian-speaking emigrants arrive in Sweden with one suitcase, look around, and say: 'Wow, beautiful, clean, well-groomed, the authorities are not rude, I want to live here!'
The Russian-speaking diaspora meets at Russian parties. Russians no longer come here en masse to live; mostly students or 'brides' come. Most students do not want to return, and on dating sites, there are plenty of announcements from those wishing to get married.
'Go to a Russian disco,' say old emigrants, 'there are plenty of "beauties in training" there. They live ten to a room, sleep on the floor, and are regularly cheated. Some are lucky and manage to find a partner, to whom they immediately move in. For that, they are ready for anything, and if lucky, they can even get married. All these girls understand very well what money is. The center of such parties are ethnic Swedes. Here you will be offered a "business marriage"; every Russian has a Swede in mind and a business plan for him.'
Interested in cheap vodka? No? Want to invest money in a restaurant or a newspaper? How about the idea of making a business in Sweden out of 'blah-blah-blah'? Upon meeting someone living here, many immediately start figuring out how to make money off them. Are you interested in house cleaning? Do you need snow removed from the roof? Or furniture moving? Cheap! No? How about buying cigarettes? How about turning a nice but poorly made Russian internet forum into a new Google? All that is needed is to give money.
Almost everyone in 'Little Russia' is engaged in side earnings. At parties, I talked to former doctors, lawyers doing cleaning, newspaper delivery, reselling used cars, uneducated laborers selling contraband cigarettes and vodka, while also dealing Viagra and salo. Teenagers who love easy money earn without much effort by playing poker online. If someone manages to 'pick up' a Swede (male or female), it is considered a sign of great success in life. However, Swedish partners are of little interest to Russian-speakers; it's a game where everyone understands everything—both those who seek and those who are the objects of the hunt.
Older men are dressed in the style of the early 90s, in double-breasted jackets and bright shirts; women in shiny clothes with lots of beads and high heels; young people in tracksuits—all that was fashionable when they arrived in Sweden. Everyone is constantly eating and discussing food. Food plays a symbolic role for immigrants. When they post photos of their current well-fed life abroad, they often illustrate it with a table full of food.
Calling the emigration 'Little Russia' is not entirely correct; many of the latest wave of emigrants come from the Baltic states, Central Asia, Ukraine, and the Caucasus. Although their national identity is tied not so much to religion and way of life, but to shared memories of living in one country.
'Little Russia' of immigrants arrives in Sweden with the diseases of Russian society. Following its reputation, the signs of which have always been unkempt seasonal workers, ethnic conflicts, and prejudice against Asians, Africans, and Arabs; irrational hatred of gays.
It is no coincidence that in the last elections many Russians supported the alliance of big bourgeoisie and the nationalist party—supporters of the slogan 'Sweden for Swedes.' The leaders of the Russian-speaking community hold right-wing bourgeois views and indirectly promote them through their information resources. The nationalists' rhetoric about protecting 'truly Swedish values' also finds resonance here.
There is something hooligan, adventurous about the 'Russian vote.' The same community leaders who previously helped the right come to power are now increasingly campaigning for leftists and more radical nationalists.
Many Russian-speaking emigrants have settled in poor immigrant suburbs of Stockholm. Russian-speaking residents enthusiastically justify their prejudice against those who look 'non-Slavic' or 'non-Scandinavian.' 'We are Europeans, after all!' drunken interlocutors say proudly. They consider all other immigrants a step lower. 'However, we quickly realized that for Swedes, we are all the same—whether black, yellow, or blue. They consider us all savages.'
There is no unity in the Russian-speaking community of Sweden, and essentially what holds emigrants together is culinary tastes and meetings at Russian discos. In emigration in such a godless country as Sweden, many have turned to Orthodoxy, but all this happened already here. They all dislike their new post-Soviet states and criticize the system of universal fraud and profit in the republics. In 'Little Russia' there is also dissatisfaction with Swedish pervasive racism when it affects them personally. 'Sweden is very Russophobic and intolerant of any deviation,' they say. National minorities had to come to Sweden to finally become Russian.
According to a recent study by sociology professor Ryszard Szulkin of Stockholm University, Sweden ranks second-to-last in Europe in terms of immigrant integration. In the first ten years in the country, most remain unemployed.
Rich Russian tourists provoke anger among the residents of 'Little Russia.' Once these immigrants fled from poverty. But suddenly it turns out that large numbers of Russian tourists arrive who can afford much that an emigrant could never allow themselves, and that staying there, one could live normally.
For today's Russian youth, emigration to countries like Sweden is something of a fetish and an unattainable goal, embodying the spirit of searching for a better place on earth and something reminiscent of a fairy tale and a dream of self-realization and wealth. The older generation, on the other hand, read about emigration in Dovlatov and Limonov; they are all people who left due to questionable political conditions but quite tolerable material circumstances, refusing to play by the established rules.
'Our people think that all this,' my interlocutor at a Russian party says, gesturing at the view from the bar window, 'is their domain.' Nothing good was implied by that. She doesn't travel to Russia very often and left herself due to growing homophobia. A single mother, after unsuccessful job searches, she started her own house cleaning business, which she runs from home. Her small apartment is filled with cleaning products. She employs several undocumented women who do the actual cleaning. She often goes with them to make sure everything is in order. 'I love Russia, but I don't really like Russians,' she said.
The next interlocutor retorted: 'I love Sweden, but I don't really like Swedes. Every Swede with three grades of education considers themselves unique, just a gift of nature. But look at those noses upturned with arrogance and those puffed-up faces and you'll understand everything.'
We went with my interlocutors for a walk in the city center. Every now and then, the funny Swedish 'ya-ya' could be heard around us; it is precisely this nodding agreement from the Russian comedy about the 'Kem volost' that we use to mock the Swedish mentality. People turned to look at us; my slightly drunk interlocutors were talking loudly, and at the sound of Russian speech, the respectable Swedes winced. We were what my interlocutors were talking about – exotic fauna, brightly dressed – women in furs and sequins, men in leather jackets and tracksuit pants.
Around us walked Turks and Arabs in gold, Africans in wide rapper jeans and absurdly large gold chains. Around the corner, Native Americans were playing pipes, some clown was shouting and handing out flyers advertising plastic surgery, then Romanian Gypsies started playing accordions.
A strange man of criminal appearance approached us. 'Hey,' he said and showed several T-shirts, continuing in Russian, 'all genuine – Armani. Great merchandise.' 'Stolen?' I asked, and everyone looked at me as if I were a clinical idiot. We walked on, and other strollers joined us. New ideas for making money were voiced incessantly.
Leonid FAYVUSHKIN,
«Russkaya Germaniya».