Västerås tales - Midsummer celebrations

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Today, the 19th of June is Midsummer day in Sweden and its a holiday here. Today or tomorrow is probably going to be the longest day possible in the entire year. Midsummer is a big and important celebration for Swedes and this is a day which every Swede - old, young, children and even the recently borns probably awaits for during summer time. On this day, Swedish families have a big social gathering filled with music, food and fun and mostly these celebrations are held in the country side. I do not want to go into the details of Midsummer celebrations and how it started as the information is available on the internet. Interested people can find it on Wikipedia or at "http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Lifestyle/Traditions/Celebrating-the-Swedish-way/Midsummer/".

It seems I am lucky to be in Västerås at the right time of the year, thats what all my friends are saying and I had the big opportunity today to witness Midsummer celebrations here with some of my friends. The venue was the Vallby Open Air Museum or the Vallby Friluftsmuseum (http://www.vallbyfriluftsmuseum.se/merinfo.asp?id=54), around 3 kms from the place where I am staying. As usual, weather is a part of life in Sweden and I am also getting used to this very quickly. I have started checking the weather forecast on the web nowadays. The weather for the daytime today was predicted to be partly cloudy with showers in the afternoon. We were informed that the celebrations were to start around 1:00PM and so we started on our bikes (cycles) aroud 12:15PM. We reached the place by 12:30PM passing through very beautiful cycle tracks on the way. The weather was really good at that time and we met many of our other friends too who had come there with their families. We parked our bikes and went through the programme for the day and came to know that the actual programme of dancing was to start at 3:30PM, that's the item for which we came here. We were disappointed, but the delay turned out to be a blessing in disguise especially for me.

A music programme was also listed on the schedule at 1:00PM where artistes from Peru were going to present their music followed by performances from local Swedish artistes. The Vallby Museum showcases exhibits which depicts the lifestyle of people in Västmanland region of Sweden during the 18th century. The museum encompasses a huge area something sort of village and there are many old style houses, a village school, farms where chicken, goats, pigs and horses are reared and gardens where vegetables are grown. The houses were of different types and each of the rooms had the types of furniture which were used during that time. I could see a very nice collapsible bed which could be made into an adult's bed or a children's one by just adjusting the length. The kitchen had very interesting stuff, like the cooking range which was of hot plates something similar to the electric hot plates, but at the bottom of the plates, fire was lighted through wood to heat the plates. One of the things which I could differentiate was that the houses had very low ceilings and entrances. The animal farming areas were well depicted and it was maintained the way it would look like. The area where pigs were kept was as dirty as it can be and I could see a huge pig or a hog kept there. This was the largest pig I have ever seen. The goat and cow farms were neat and the horse farm was in a sort of a meadow with a huge area. The one good thing which I liked very much in the museum was that the lifestyle of the people were also depicted through real people in the houses. In one of the houses, there were two beautiful Swedish ladies in traditional dresses sitting and knitting whereas in the village school, there was a lady teacher. In another of the houses, a couple in traditional dresses were seen sitting and having food. All these things I could see just due to the fact that the main programme was postponed. It took us around an hour to go through all these exhibits and I found it to be very interesting and nice. I came to know why it was called an Open Air Museum because all the exhibits were outside and independent in nature rather than being housed under the same roof as in a traditional museum. During this time, the music programme had also started and I could see that the number of people in the museum was slowly increasing. The music performance of the Peruvian artistes were nice. It seemed that all the artistes belonged to one family. An elderly gentleman was on the guitar and an younger guy was on the flute. There were two ladies who were playing flute as well as singing. Interestingly there were two kids too, one of them very very young who were using the shaker and also singing !! It was very nice.


By the time we finished seeing most of the museum, it was around 2:15PM and we had more than an hour to spend before the actual ceremony started on the ground. The clouds in the sky had also started to open up slowly and a light drizzle started. People started hunting for shelters all around. As I mentioned earlier, this is a festival for every Swedish and I could see several children around, many of them less than 1 year and on the pram with the moms pushing the cart around. We decided to have some coffee and went inside the only restaurant in the museum. It was choc-a-bloc full, but we were lucky to get a place for ourselves. The rains slowly became heavy and we decided to stay put in the restaurant itself till 3:30PM, the time for the ceremony and the dance to start. We started for the open ground at 3:15PM and inspite of the rains, we could see all the people moving towards the ground. I am seeing this sort of enthusiasm for the first time and it had nothing to do with the age of the people around. The path had become slippery and the crowd slowly moved towards the main venue. In the meanwhile, the ceremony started with artistes dressed in traditional folk attire and carrying the Swedish flag marching towards the ground. When we reached the ground, it was crowded heavily and I could see people getting around a maypole. A maypole had been erected at the centre of the ground and the pole was decorated with flowers at every stage up to the top as per the tradition. The artistes who were supposed to sing were under a shelter. The programme started with a dance by couples dressed in traditional folk attire. Most of the couples were elderly people and this level of excitement and enthusiasm has to be seen to be believed. After sometime, there was an announcement asking people to form rings around the maypole for the dance. Immediately, there was a small rush and I could see three rings getting formed. The announcer kept on requesting people to expand the ring to accomodate more people. The sight of several children having flower rings on their heads and just waiting for the dance to start was just beautiful. Within a short time, the name of the rhyme or the song was prompted and people got ready. The singing was magnificient and the dance was equally good. It was a beautiful sight to see so many people dancing together holding their hands to each other and going round and round. The songs kept on changing and the dancing style also kept on changing here and there a little bit. Suddenly, the rains started with full intensity, but the intensity and energy of the people were equally strong. In fact, people were liking dancing in the rain and I was told that rains are always expected during Midsummer celebration and thats a good sign for them. I was also finding it very interesting and wanted to dance, but then stopped myself :). It seems this festivity happens all over Sweden and people enjoy a lot. More importantly since it is held over a weekend, people have the best time to celebrate before going for their vacations.

I stayed at the venue for another 15 minutes or so and left the place to go back home. It was drizzling and we cycled back in the rain. That was again fun. I think I have to buy full rain wear for the next trip. That was the end of an entertaining and fun-filled day today and I am expecting to have many more of such days in the future.

Adjö for this weekend :)