Entrepreneurial Sweden
Almhult - 3rd July
Today’s expedition took us on a varied journey which included an Abbey, a castle, a runestone, and a lawnmower manufacturer before arriving at that home of Ikea.
Vadstena
Vadstena of old had four main features that still exist today:
1 – 16th century castle, apparently ‘one of’ Sweden’s best preserved castles from the Gustav Vasa era
2 – 14th century Abbey and Monastery which is still in use today but as a pilgrimage retreat, museum and hotel
3 – Sweden’s oldest town hall (15th century) and
4 – 16th century hospital buildings that now form the hospital museum.
Vadstena is the end destination for Scandinavians walking the pilgrim trails from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Hamburg or Sweden. Unlike France, we haven’t seen many pilgrims, maybe 5 at the most, however we did come upon a candidate for Nelson’s Shit Drivers Facebook page. The noddy in the photo parked his car and caravan over the footpath entrance and exit to the lake reserve. Given Vadstena is a peaceful picturesque lakeside village that attracts retired holidaymakers to park up and relax, I’m sure one his colleagues will point out the error of his ways.
Rok
The very small village of Rok has a rock, it is Rokstenen. Of Sweden’s 3,000 Rune stones it is the most famous because it has the longest runic inscription and most difficult to interpret. The stone weighs 5 tons, is 2.4 metres tall and is believed to be 9th century. It was discovered in the wall of the nearby 12th century church, when it was common to use rune stones as building material.
Two no-no’s:
– have some respect and don’t let your dog piss on Sweden’s most famous rune stone and
– don’t trust kiwis; they will attempt to nick anything.
Thanks Rok for the free visit.
This photo was also taken at Rok, we took the B-road to get to Rok which means driving through acres of farmland, mostly wheat. However 200 metres from the rune stone, our lovely GPS took us on a 2.5km detour, on a gravel road, to the base of a wind turbine.
Husqvarna
Sweden has the highest rate of entrepreneurship per capita in Europe. They have some staggering statistics regarding start up companies and initiatives in product and manufacturing innovation, both in the current day and in the past. We went through Jonkoping, the home of the safety match; if you bought Beehive matches in NZ up to 2017 you would have seen ‘Made in Sweden’ on them. However we didn’t stop in Jonkoping because of more interest to us was the home of Husqvarna, manufacturers of powered garden equipment and sewing machines, among many other things.
The company started out as a state owned rifle manufacturer at the waterfalls in Husqvarna in 1689. The stream was used for running water mills and other machinery, now it is owned by a local company who transform the energy into electricity. In 1872 Husqvarna extended their operations to the manufacture of sewing machines, then in 1874 to kitchenware, 1896 bicycles, 1903 motorcycles, and in 1919 the lawnmower. From then things have continually expanded with various powered garden machinery. NZ has the robot lawnmowers but obviously they are more affordable in Sweden because everybody has them.
This is Smedbyn. It was once the 18th century living quarters of the metal smiths at the Husqvarna factory, now the buildings are used for craftspeople, artists and community groups to design, produce, display and sell their products.
Almhult
Almhult was home to the first IKEA store, and now home to the IKEA museum, an IKEA warehouse, the Ikea Motel and the death-place of the IKEA founder. As you can see from the label above and if you check products in NZ, they are usually made in China, claim to be Swedish however their headquarters is in Netherlands and the founder didn’t always live here. Ingvar Kamprad (IK) started the company when he was 17 years old, the E and A in IKEA are the first letter of the farm he was born on and the nearby village. He was an entrepreneur from the age of 5, selling matches (from Jonkoping no doubt); he continued to dabble in sales right up to his IKEA venture. The company grew, makes billions, has massive sized stores, etc. The rest is history in the making because IKEA is still going and will in 2025 have its first store in NZ, currently it is online sales from a NZ warehouse.
Today’s ABBA tribute is ‘I have a dream’ (1979), for all the entrepreneurs who like Ingvar Kamprad followed their dream. Sweden has already produced a number of them and will continue to do so as their universities and businesses attract people from all over the world to study and work here. Sweden encourages this because they receive considerable revenue from international students and taxes from foreign workers.
I Have a Dream, a song to sing
To help me cope, with anything
If you see the wonder, of a fairy tale
You can take the future, even if you fail