Horizons

I'm back at "work" after a long weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark with a few reflections and a brief update from Vienna.

The beautiful Amager beach, easily reachable by Copenhagen subway.

I spent the long weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark with my kids. One of those last minute, not exactly fully thought through decisions based on a cheap flight but failing to calculate how incredibly expensive everything else is in the beautiful Scandinavian country I once spent time in as a teenager on a sports exchange program, years ago. I remembered lots of blond people, bicycles, public nudity, expensive beer, and the family father explaining to me that everyone makes the same salary in Denmark, and my eyes widening, but not nearly as much as when the family daughter showed me the giant box of condoms she had been given, for free, at her school.

Fair to say that much has not changed since the 1990s. At its core, at first glance, Denmark is as I remember it. Still, it boggles my mind that even within the EU you have such discrepancies of lifestyle, wealth, perceptions of what a “good life” entails.

I am personally inherently more comfortable in countries in which you can “negotiate” the little things. This probably has a lot to do with being raised by an libertarian-esque immigrant parent who had issues with authority (of any kind) and having spent my formative years in Moscow during a time when a crisp $100 bill could fix all sorts of sticky situations (thank a doctor, pay a traffic fine on the spot). So for me spending a weekend in Denmark was mind-blowing because everyone follows the established rules and I saw zero evidence of any diversion.

I don’t know honestly how ordinary people manage with the prices we experienced. My kids nearly died (figuratively, of course), paying around €9 for an ice coffee on their debit cards with their own money in a chain of Scandinavian coffee shops. The prices are in Danish crowns, so it is deceptive, but we quickly memorised 100 DKK = about €13 and continued to feel our blood pressure rise every time we had to pay for anything. I never saw cash used once the entire weekend. Public transport is ubiquitous, just like in Vienna, but unlike Vienna, they actually do check your tickets pretty regularly. My gut instinct is not to buy a ticket when they don’t actually force you to buy a ticket, but I went against my gut and bought 24 hour tickets the day we went to the beach. Good thing I did, as we were checked within riding one stop on the driverless subway train. And he checked all four tickets, even the kids. On our way back, a family of German tourists were stopped by an inspector because they had not bought a ticket for their dog (dogs cost the same as children aged 12-15). No words.

A lot of things feel driverless, people-less. We paid a ton of money to eat what was admittedly high quality, delicious food but we ordered ourselves, served ourselves, cleared our plates ourselves. Only once did we eat at a sit-down restaurant, and when I asked the server at the end if tip was included, he said yes, but I couldn’t find a service charge on the bill, and then I realized he must mean tip is included as in we all get paid enough thanks it’s already built into the high price of the food. It felt terribly strange.

The streets are clean, and as one of my kids remarked “everyone looks the same, like there aren’t rich or poor.” The cars struck me immediately — many surprisingly older models, very few luxury SUVs. You have the impression car driving is something done out of necessity and at great expense, not a pleasure or expression of status. Toilets were a strange disappointment, not as nice as you would expect for a country that prides itself on a nice external appearance but perhaps that's it — everything is practical, not flashy. Fashion is understated and looks like you threw on whatever suited the weather and felt comfortable, in various shades of beige, white, navy, black. I didn’t see a single pedicure or manicure all weekend. Not one. I hadn’t seen that many naked toenails, ever. It was like anti-fashion and kind of blew my mind.

Which all made me think — the poorer the country (on a GDP per capita basis, let’s say), the more women focus on outer beauty. In Denmark, it was almost as if everyone is seen as unisex and man vs women has reached a point of irrelevancy. It made me, perhaps because of my age and my own personal views, feel strangely uncomfortable. I like to pull the female card where possible. I like being in countries when a man will offer to help you carry something heavy, even if you are perfectly capable of carrying it yourself. I would not want to go Dutch.

It’s funny, even the former royal palace we visited in Copenhagen was understated. The crown jewels were understated. It’s almost as if the crueler a regime (thinking about the jewels in the Kremlin museum), the bigger the bling, the worse their subjects lived. Down the road we visited a super modern, super light art museum that was functional to the max: sorted by century and nationality of artist, you can see 400 years of art all under one roof in under an hour and then top it off with a ridiculously expensive coffee and cake (self-serve) in a light, bright KAFETERIA with 10 meter tall ceilings and plenty of very hip looking pensioners enjoying an afternoon gab.

As food, and I imagine drink and other illicit substances, is so expensive, exercise is still free, and the Danish seem rather obsessed with it. They are running, biking, and generally being sporty everywhere you look. It didn’t feel like a place to go to indulge in vices. I wonder how you get a society to all adapt a similar concept of what constitutes a good life. How you get everyone to conform and move towards a “sustainable” future, a word that sure gets tossed around in the EU a lot these days while not answering the question, what about giant polluters like China as we all share one planet? On the main shopping street, you see Roma, and while my initial reaction (based on decades of lived experience, not racism) is to hold my purse tighter, I then noticed each of them was pushing a baby stroller — but with no baby. Each stroller had a black trash bag placed in the seat, and they were pulling pop cans and plastic bottles out of public trash containers. So recycling must pay. So they are “working” rather than begging or pick-pocketing. I had never seen that before, either.

I saw quite a few Ukrainian flags flying prominently, but interestingly, I never heard Ukrainian, not once. I heard Russian a few times, and I think, from the accent, they were Russian. While we were there, I read that Denmark offered a huge aid package to Ukraine. I kept wondering: but where are the actual Ukrainians? I too had suggested Denmark to Ukrainians at the start of the war as they passed through Vienna’s central train station. I specifically remember helping two moms with two teenage sons from Mykolaiv get to Hamburg from which they would take a bus to Copenhagen. What happened to them? Is the situation in Denmark the same that Ukrainians cannot afford public transport, and you therefore do not see them out and about (highly likely, I would guess)?

Another thing I noticed was a lack of immigrants working what we normally associate as low-paid, entry level retail jobs. Instead, you see young Danish women working in ice cream shops and coffee houses. Where are the immigrants, I wondered. You can see Malmö from the beach in Copenhagen. Sweden’s third largest city has reportedly struggled in recent years with the huge changes from a large wave of immigrants from non-EU countries, the largest groups being Iraq and Syria. Although the city is just a short train ride away (the next stop on the Copenhagen airport train is literally Malmö, and when the plane lands you see a bridge that seemingly rises out of the sea — that is the railway tunnel-to-bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden), you don’t see that ethnic diversity in Copenhagen’s city center.

So I started to google. Something like 30,000 Ukrainians arrived in Denmark (so roughly half the number who came to Austria), and already 5,000 have reportedly gone home. Denmark, it turns out, has been criticised by the UNHCR and other NGOs for its policies towards asylum-seekers. For example, it declared Syria a safe country and made deportations to Damascus. Only 3% of Afghans had their asylum claims approved. It takes eight years of consecutive residence, proof of employment, language skills, etc. to be granted permanent residency in Denmark. In other words: Denmark is not Sweden nor Canada. It is rather more like the “Austria first” when it comes to immigration which some politicians here would like to implement in practice.

All of this made me feel like the EU as a concept, as a common set of values, identity and public policy goals, is basically hanging by a thread, despite the images of unity coming out of Brussels. Remember, there is the talk with big buzz words and eloquent vocabulary inside forums and think tanks and podiums, and there is the reality on the ground. Those often don’t overlap at all; I fear now that is more true than ever.

I can imagine a majority of Austrian voters would love to do what Denmark has done, only then they would be surprised why they cannot find employees and the geography of Austria, smack in the middle of Central Europe with its porous borders, would make such a move challenging (although not impossible — just look at Orban’s Hungary — very white and economically, not great, despite huge subsidies from EU).

GDP per capita (2021, USD)

USA $70,249

Denmark $68,007

Sweden $61,028

Austria $53,637

Canada $51,987

Hungary $18,728

Denmark felt like a place that was not focused on creating simple jobs for ordinary people to keep them busy in regular, public sector employment. In fact, people have been removed from many traditional roles already. There is no ticket desk where you can ask a woman or man for the right ticket. There is only an App or a kiosk. You self-serve in a food court of gourmet offerings in which you pay a restaurant price (more!) without any kind of “service”. You serve yourself. Our lovely, new hotel had a “self check-in” desk with iPads which no one was using. There was no man to help with luggage. You book your pool time and your breakfast time, and you even brew your own coffee. All extremely lovely quality and delicious and infrastructure great, but done with minimal people. Perhaps that is the Danish answer to the immigration question. Get more done with fewer workers. I am genuinely curious how long that will last for, as it seems exactly the opposite of what countries like Canada have done (grow economically through immigration and in the process create a new, inclusive multiethnic multi-religious national identity).

The only moment that felt briefly like “home” was the night of Erdogan’s election “victory”, a handful of cars drove through downtown Copenhagen blasting music and waving Turkish flags. It was a tiny crowd compared to other EU capitals, and most passers by probably didn’t even realise what it was about. I took my kids one evening to Tivoli Gardens, which was so expensive that I capped them on two rides each, and they then asked where all the teenagers are, accustomed to Prater, to which entrance is free and a place where Vienna teens of all backgrounds can gather on weekends. I guess the Danish teens also can’t afford it, I replied, it’s probably just for tourists now. It was so pristine and immaculate and — nearly empty at a bright 9pm on a fairly warm evening. I asked myself if I would want to live somewhere where fun is priced out. Or fun is defined by a society based on the majority preference (thinking back to the exercise weekend warriors). I definitely think I lean more towards available, affordable hedonism and a multiple of answers to the question of what defines a high quality of live.

At the airport, after getting yelled at by security staff for moving from one line to another to join my kids under a rope instead of walking around (they then kicked us all out of line), and my girls panicking because not all their tubes of make-up would fit in the tiny little plastic bag we were given (only one per person! no exceptions!), I perused a shelf of HYGGE branded books, and decided maybe it was all just a really big marketing win on a national scale.

Would you really want to have to pay €9 for three tiny sausages in a supermarket? I think most people would agree they would like everyone to be able to afford a coffee and a pastry. That doesn’t seem like a big ask. I think back to Tim Horton’s in Toronto — literally a public good at this point. I moved towards another bookshelf, and bought two fascinating books by a Danish author about her own working-class upbringing in Copenhagen decades ago. I am halfway through “Childhood, Youth, Dependency” and it is a fascinating window into the “before times”. So much reads like the little I know of Viennese history — social democratic workers seeking to unionise vs. business owners terribly afraid of the word “union” and letting education be available to all.

This is an interesting piece from last October on the compromises that Danish society have broadly accepted (25% VAT!) and the anti-immigration views of both the political left and right. It is interesting because the society seems broadly very, very tolerant — we overhead a lesbian couple with a young toddler on the beach talking about having their baby in Denmark so both their rights as mothers would be fully protected by law. One mother was American, the other German. But in the next breath they mentioned how expensive it is, and moving away.

This, for example, blows my mind. Imagine a finance minister taking an entire summer off to spend time with his baby. Of any sex, I should add. If you are minister, you make sacrifices for the sake of the country. Right? Isn’t that what you get paid for? I read these headlines and think about how if you pulled this in the U.S. or many other countries as a politician you would simply be eaten for breakfast. Do the garbage men and teachers and nurses also get to take off six months for “stress”?

Copenhagen is beautiful for a long weekend. The sea is crystal clear. We ate the most delicious fish sandwich of my entire life at La Banchina. We enjoyed super burgers at Popl. The hotel breakfasts were out of this world delicious. We stumbled by accident onto a brick tower with a spiral walk up which gave us a view of the entire city, we walked and walked and walked until we jumped on a public transport ferry like those in Venice only much newer and cleaner, and pretended to be downloading an app to pay for our tickets (this was a task too much for me), we watched throngs of tourists all nearly push each other into the water to take a photo of the underwhelming Little Mermaid statue, we learned Scandinavian trains are a bit like German trains when it comes to running on time (or rather, not) and if you don’t listen carefully you might just end up in Sweden if you miss your stop.

I will really miss the cinnamon and cardamom buns. I must learn how to bake them at home.

---

Back in Vienna, I am so grateful to have received 30 email supermarket gift cards, and have been busy distributing those. I was at the soon-to-be-closed arrival center yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised to hear some social housing assignments are finally starting to happen.

This morning I have been dealing with some very upset and lonely pensioners. There are no easy answers, but the Austrian state not providing a bare minimum of financial aid makes a difficult situation even worse. This is an unseen crisis amongst us.

I also gave an interview yesterday to a graduate student in Vienna writing about how Ukrainian students have (and have not) been integrated into the Austrian education system. I received so many responses from mothers — both positive and negative, an entire range of experiences, that I think it worthy a separate blog post, particularly as this school year is nearly over (end of June). To come!

In the meantime…thank you for allowing me this divergence from the normal subject matter and for your continued support, without which none of what Mario & I are doing would be possible. While important people with actual job titles talk about important, theoretical solutions over conference tables, it gives me a small sense of satisfaction to know that we offered a temporary, tangible fix which is more than just a financial aid — it is also a symbol that ordinary people from all over the world do care and want to help you, and you are not invisible. As the war drags on, and public attention wades, I feel like this is more important now than ever.

For more on the “big picture”, this podcast episode provides a good round-up of recent events and also touches very succinctly on a touchy subject: perception of the Russian so-called “opposition” outside of Russia, and especially in the eyes of Ukrainians. Julia does a very good job of explaining it: