The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming

 The Stockholm Archipelago island, Svartsö, is beautiful. But it also bears witness to a harsh reality rooted in its history. That reality, apparent throughout Sweden, is a growing awareness and fear of a threat coming from the east.  

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Svartsö is one of the smaller islands west of Möja and southeast of Ljusterö

Hiking part of the Stockholm Archipelago Trail through Svartsö (as we also just did on Grinda Island, another of the Trail’s 20 islands) we came across Storträsk Lake. In the middle of this lake is a very small island, and it was here that the residents of Svartsö fled to hide from Russian invaders in 1719. Russia’s naval flotilla had traversed the Baltic that year and proceeded to burn and ravage nearly the entire archipelago. The raids were part of Russia's strategy to pressure Sweden economically and psychologically by devastating the prosperous coastal regions. It’s been named the Russian Pillage (1719-1721). And there were other attacks and wars over the course of the next century, culminating in Russia’s conquest of Finland (then part of Sweden) in 1814.

Svartso.jpg

Storträsk Lake is the larger lake, with the island in the eastern part

The historic basis for Sweden’s wariness of Russia runs deep. The conflicts, destruction and loss of territory has caused a sense of threat from Russia to become embedded in the nation’s collective memory. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought this home in a frightening way for most Swedes - fear of Russian power nearly doubled to 75% in polling data after the invasion; and almost two-thirds became convinced of the need to join NATO (after a 200-year history of non-alignment in peacetime and neutrality in wartime).

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A timeline showing Russia's multiple attacks against Sweden in the 18th and early 20th centuries.

Things have only worsened in the last few weeks after a plane carrying the President of the European Union (EU) was hit by mysterious electronic interference as it sought to land in Bulgaria, while Sweden has reported a massive increase of instances of deliberate jamming of satellite navigation systems of civilian aircraft over the Baltic Sea. Everyone we talked to is convinced that Russia is the source of this interference. And the worry is everywhere.

Where will it end?  How will it end? These are the questions on Swedes’ minds.

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