Stockholm, (pictures coming later, perhaps)

The idea of a fashionable Stockholm can be easily grasped from the whole of media; even if it is only the idea itself that liking Stockholm is fashionable. However, even the lousy and old fashioned Skavsta airport, called Stockholm Skavsta despite being a nap away from the real Stockholm, offers us a bunch of colourful youngsters, without any words declaring the weirder, the cooler—the idea that comes to mind while remembering the girl, about seventeen (according to her face), half black, half green hair and wearing clothes that make her look like a pious old lady, which is a bit weird since in Stockholm itself you may notice an inverted view: tons of people in their forties looking like youngsters; not in a bad way, though. The whole place leaves an impression of a young city: the faces that seem to be no older than in their fifties (and in an outfit that in eastern Europe probably would not be preferable for such age). The absence of old people makes us think about their wealthy and happy lives at least in the outskirts of Stockholm or somewhere in small towns and villages away from the busy Stockholm. The place is left for young Swedes, immigrants and tourists.

It is not hard to distinguish the first ones from the second ones, not to tell about the last group. Immigrants are everywhere: they are selling you a ticket for a subway in a kiosk, driving the bus you are in, exchanging your money in a tiny neighborhood bank outside of the city center; if you do not have a possibility to establish a conversation with them—as we did by mistake by taking the wrong way in the bus and talking to the Persian driver—you can only try to extract information about their origins from their skin, the shape of their eyes and noses, etc. It should be weird to live in a country with tons of immigrants who, mostly due to economical reasons, are now surrounding you. Do swedes ask themselves the questions of how well do they know the history, language, and culture of the country? Do those things matter for them? Do they feel something like insecurity or injustice? Or are those questions just our imagination dictated by the sum of stereotypes conveyed through media, as the one about fashionable Stockholm?