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DAY 11/235 1981 – STOCKHOLM TO BALTIC SEA (FERRY)

Skansen Park

In the mid 17th century, the Swedish Empire was at its peak, and the Swedes conducted a series of invasions into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, known as the Deluge. After more than half a century of almost constant warfare, the Swedish economy deteriorated. It became the lifetime task of Charles X's son, Charles XI, to rebuild the economy and refit the army. His legacy to his son, the coming ruler of Sweden, Charles XII, was one of the best arsenals in the world, a large standing army and a great fleet. Sweden's largest potential threat at this time, Russia, had a larger army but was inferior in equipment and training, and had generally been beaten up by the Swedes for about a thousand years.

After the Battle of Narva in 1700, one of the first battles of the Great Northern War, the Russian army was so severely devastated that Sweden had yet another opportunity to invade Russia. However, Charles XII did not pursue the defeated Russian army, instead turning against Poland–Lithuania and defeating the Polish king, Augustus II the Strong, and his Saxon allies in 1702. This gave the young Russian tsar, Peter, time to rebuild and modernise the Russian army and fleet, and turn a dilapidated, captured Swedish fortress into the front line of Russia’s northern defence, at a swamp that became known as St Petersburg,

After the success of invading Poland, Charles XII decided invade Russia, but this ended in a decisive Russian victory at the Battle of Poltava in 1709. After a long march exposed to Cossack raids, the Russian Tsar Peter the Great's guerilla warfare, and the extremely cold winter of 1709, the Swedes were weakened with shattered morale and were devastated by the Russian army at Poltava. 

The defeat meant the beginning of the end for the Swedish Empire. In addition, the plague raging in East Central Europe devastated the Swedish dominions and reached Central Sweden in 1710. Returning to Sweden in 1715, Charles XII launched two campaigns against Norway on 1716 and 1718.

Forced to cede large areas of land in the Treaty of Nystad in 1721, Sweden also lost its place as an empire and as the dominant state on the Baltic Sea. With Sweden's lost influence, Russia emerged as an empire and became one of Europe's dominant nations. As the war finally ended in 1721, Sweden had lost an estimated 200,000 men, 150,000 of those from the area of present-day Sweden and 50,000 from the Finnish part of Sweden.

In the 18th century, Sweden did not have enough resources to maintain its territories outside Scandinavia, and most of them were lost, culminating with the loss in 1809 of eastern Sweden to Russia, which became the highly autonomous Grand Principality of Finland in Imperial Russia.

Skansen Park is one of the oldest open-air museums and zoos in the world, and the oldest  in Sweden and is located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm. It was opened on 11 October 1891 by Artur Hazelius (1833–1901) to show the way of life in the different parts of Sweden.

Hazelius bought around 150 houses from all over Sweden, and had them shipped piece by piece to Skansen Park, where they were rebuilt to provide a unique picture of traditional Sweden. Only three of the buildings in the museum are not original, and were painstakingly copied. All of the buildings are open to visitors and show the full range of Swedish life from the Skogaholm Manor house built in 1680, to the 16th century Älvros farmhouses.

Following the day trip to Skansen Park, we board the ferry from Stockholm across the Baltic sea to Helsinki, where we eat, drink and make merry for most of the night – standard Top Deck procedure on overnight ferries.

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