The weekend of September 28-29th Sweden celebrated Baltic Days. We attended at the National Maritime Museum in Stockholm Sunday. Which for some reason I had not visited yet.
Baltic Days is an annual event for the Swedish-Baltic culture that developed not least after tens of thousands of Balts fled to Sweden at the end of the Second World War.
Besides studying the exhibition on the history of the Swedish Navy, I attended a talk by Joakim Paasikivi, Swedish number one media expert on the War in Ukraine. The title of the talk was “With Russia as neighbour”. Paasikivi has roots in Finland and Estonia which he used to paint a picture of Russian imperialism and colonialism against its neighbours. Dryly puncturing Putin’s claims along the way about Russia never loosing a war, being encircled and hence forced to attack first etc. His final point was that the War in Ukraine is not about Ukraine restoring its territory back to the 1991 borders -- but that Russia goes back to its 1991 borders ie accepts that it has sovereign neighbours it cannot invade at will. And that is a goal all of Russia's neighbours can agree on.
We also enjoyed a crafting workshop organised by a group from Lithuania and the choir performances.
