martintuomisto

Here comes the other part about the Swedish Wildlife, enjoy:P .

The Wolf
The wolf lives in packs and in each pack consists mostly of ten to sixteen wolfs.They are predators and often hunts in pairs but it can hunt alone as well, this occurs mostly in the summer when the more easier animals comes to life from the winter sleep. During the winter the wolfs hunts in packs, in a bigger group than during the summer to kill bigger animals like an elk.

If you're in the swedish countryside near a forest you maybe is lucky to hear the wolfs howling in the middle of the night. It's an really uniqe sound and gives a feeling of being close to the nature and something in a spiritual way, that was the rumors say :P .

The wolf is also a kind of protected animal in Sweden because of such a low amount of them. And usually the wolf only is hunted by humans when the wolfs are hunting down farm animals like sheeps. Or when wolfs are threatening humans generaly or becomes a problem.

As the headline says I thought I can tell you just a bit about the swedish-undeworld or maffia if you could call it that, not that sure if you compare to the Yauza and Triads you have in Japan but I can contribute with some text-rows about the criminality and it's influence in the swedish society.

Okay, the criminalty in sweden is overal pretty low or somethng in the middle, it's not extremely high anyway. But the criminal gangs in Sweden are in fact mc-clubs or at least the biggest ones; Hells Angels, Bandidos, Outlaws and the Brotherhood Wolfpack. Theese mentioned gangs are the biggest ones in Sweden and if you hear of swedish crime-gangs you probaly hear about one or more from the mentioned above.




Hells Angels, HA
Hells Angels is the biggest and oldest MC-gang and has the highest amount of active criminal gangmembers.

The mc-gang is or "was" back in the 70s a crimesyndicate with incomings from prodtituion, narcotic drug dealing, blackmailing and financial crime.

The gang today is very organized, the gang has thier own rankingsystem and it runs very descrete and has incomes from legal business as well, as tattoo-shops (theese are among the best in Sweden) and recently it was reveald that Hells Angels club-members had been running a rehab centre for youths and thereby got an steady income, legaly.

The illegal business that this gang is surviving on is still crimes like blackmailing, robberies and similar crimes, but the risk of get caught has increased alot because of harder supervision by the police and other factors.

Other illegal business this gang are doing is that they "controll" clubs/places (nightclubs and pubs for example).
This is basicly blackmailing, the gang takes a fee from the club, restaurant or other places and they protect them against other gangs and from vandalising or other unpleasant things that could happpen to the place if they don't pays them.
This kind of business has it's stronghold in the bigger cities like Stockholm and Gothenburg and it doesn't affect the civialans that are going the the club or the place, as long as the club-owner is friend with Hells Angels so the gang doesn't blows up the place with civilians or abuses people outside the club to make a statement to the owner to start pay them.


The Other gangs
The other criminal gangs of Sweden has thier incomes from crimes and activities similar to Hells Angels, I just brought up hells angels as an example.

You should know that the last activity mentioned, blackmailing club members are only the largest gangs who can run operations like that because it takes years of reputation and power.

And it's not in that way that every club in stockholm pays smoe criminal gang, it exists but it's not a very big society issue.

Gangs and Society
Theese criminal gangs isn't really a problem for the ordinary sweds or the civilans as long as you don't owes them money or abusing a club member or something else to fuck up the club. The problem beginns when the gangs are in war with eatch other and then a couple of people are dying in shootings because of the rivality between the gangs.

It also becomes a problem when the gang or club jumps unprovoked on a civilains and blackmails them, but it's not common anymore because of harder supervision from the swedish police. So as long as you'r enot causing or has anything to do with thoose mc-clubs you're are garanteed to 99% that you can live a life away from ciminality like this.

I just had a brainstorm when I sat and wondered what I should blog about next that are typical swedish and what can't be more swedish than a Caravan holiday on Öland, the popular and according to me the best swedish vacation Island :P .

Packing a caravan full of stuff and going to a camping and live in the caravan and just enjoying what the summer has to offer, the sun, swimming in the ocean you got the point :P, is something that's very common in Sweden and it's not unusual to spot several full campings along the road if you is driving around in sweden.
Caravan-vacation it's like an old swedish tradition or just typical swedish I guess.

But it's not all swedish people that are spending thier vacation this way,  my family for an example, I don't know why we're not vacationing that way but i think that none of us in the family are enjoying staying in a caravan during our vacation and living on a camping, we think it's tacky or more like gypsie-style I believe, it's hard to explain but that's the best comparement I can think of right now.

Anyway what I was going to tell you about is that Öland, the island that is located just below the swedish middle or something like it.

It's a very popular vacation destination for all swedish people, it's people who comes to the souther Sweden from Stockholm or above to spend thier vacation on Öland.

And why Öland of all the places? Öland is something else than the ordinary sweden, it has it has it's own Touch in a different way and it's a little bit extraodinary than the swedish mainland :P and with the perfect weather a summer there could be like a vacation outside Sweden.

The nature on Öland consists of flat-land and much bushes and grass, not that much deep forests that otherwise is common in Sweden.

Because of Ölands popularity it's a lot of things going on during the summer-time and the Island is flowing of parties, teenagares and other activities that could be fun to do :P, and yes alcohol is very common during the vacation-time and actually alot of teenagers are arrasted for being drunk and sadly several traffic accidents takes it's place on this vacation-Island too. Even disasters like murder that occured last midsummer on öland when a couple of drunk teenagers were drunk and lost the controll on a camping last year, I remeber it that well because I was working on a camping about one kilometer from the camping where that teen was murdered.


Alot of campings exists on Öland due to it's increased popularity.
And the camping that stands out most from the others is the five star camping Böda Sand and maybe the most famous one I guess as well and it's located obn the northest tip of Öland. The thing that the camping is most famous for is the not-so-common extrafine white  sand that is there and the camping is very nice overall so it's a place I really recommen to visit if you have the time.

Finally some pictures of this popular summer Island :P


Spendning the vacation in a caravan on a camping is very swedish and common for many sweds :P



Here you got Böda Sand the camping I was talking about :P




What can I say? It's Öland :)


Nice or What?

Okay enjoy this picture and hopefully you got something out if this post:P Cya:P

When I was talking about the swedish nature and wildlife I think I forgot to mention something, a little detail that could be fun to know and it's a little difference from other countries as well and it's that,
in Sweden we have something we call right of public access or in swedish "allemansrätt".

It's a kind of law, I'm not sure it's written down in the swedish law books but it's anyway an applicable law in Sweden. This "law" or rule means that you can walk through forests and land without asking the owner for permission but you're only able to walk around, take a strawl in the forest and not disturb the owner or someone else in the area and neither destory or damage the forest or land in any way.

The law does not include camping either, to do that you have to ask for permission.

This little law or exception doesn't allow you enter someone's jardin either :P But you're allowed to take a tour in a forest without any permission from the owner, just be careful :P .

In Sweden the nature varies alot depending on where you are.
In the northtest parts the deep coniferious forests are dominating and the snowy mountains becomes more common and the snow lasts long and the climate is rough and the winter chiller lasts longer.
A funny thing is that in the summer the sun never goes down in the northests parts and it's basically light the whole night.



Picture of Lappland in the norther parts.

In the southen parts of Sweden the land becomes more flat and opened.
In Skåne, the southest area of Sweden, the landscapes are wide open and mostly covered with fields and completely flat, thier are no mountains or hills at all. The climate is mostly pretty mild and the snow often goes away as quick it falls down :) Okay, that was a bit exaggeriated but I just wanted to make a point that usually it doesn't comes that much snow and the climate is milder than in the norths. The forests here are mostly decidioius forests and as I said before, the woods becomes more rare the souther you gets :P



the southest parts of Sweden (skåne)



In Swedens middle-parts the climate and nature is a real mix of the southest and the northest climate and nature.
The nature varies in changing from flat to hilly and the forests are a mix of decidious and coniferious forests.
The wheather variers as well, some years it comes real amount of snow and some years it's like nothing and plus-degrees in december, so it variers alot.

I can report from the litte lower than the middle area of sweden because I live there (approximately) and the last two years the snow has come in huge amounts and it feels like we are living in Lappland or anywhere else in the northest areas of Sweden. And the climate has been anything than mild :P so this year-snow has not begun to melt until for one and one-half month ago :P

I have listed a couple of animals (with description) that are very attractive to tourists who are visiting sweden every year in hope of seeing theese animals.


The Brown Bear
The brown bear is most common in the nortest parts of sweden and during the winter it hiberates in a den, made of moss and twigs or something similar to that. This bear can weigh up to 350 kilos! that's a lot of bear.
And it also get's it's cubs during the winter.
Before the freezing-cold winter is comming to sweden the bear gains a lot of weigh and bodyfat, by eating different kind of berries and some other stuff it can find in the swedish forrests :P .

The bear is not hunted in Sweden until it becomes a threat to civilian people or damaging farm-animals like sheeps or whatever you can think of. But it hasn't always been like this, the bear hunting was more common back in the old swedish days but now it's a protected animal to preserve it and not eradicate it.
A very important thing to know it's that the bear can attack and even kill a human if it feels threatened by the man.




The wolverine
The wolverine is rare in Sweden and therefore it's also a protected animal and I even think this animal is one of the most threathened animals in Sweden.
It's a predator and is eating birds or mammals in the summer and during the winter it also can eat reindeers that are killed by itself or after another animal has killed.
It's a really shy animal so it's hard to get a good look at it.
The wolverine is not that big, it can weigh up to 30 Kilos.





The Elk (Moose)
The elk is higly connected to Sweden for tourists and it's alot of people every year who travels to Sweden and goes on Elk-safari, just  to see this creatures :P Especially germans are really liking theese animals, don't ask me why I guess they think they're pretty awsome because there is no elks in Germany ? Back to the topic, The elk lives mainly in the whole country, maybe they are more rare in the most southern parts of sweden but in the nature around my hometown Kalmar the elks are really common and are causing hundreds of traffic-accidents every year as well (just so you know) .
The elks are pretty big and can weigh up to 700 kilos so think bigger than a big horse or something like it :P Despite it's size it's an shy animal and they don't attack people, normaly, it has happened sometime I think but it's not often you hear about something like that.







If you ever will drive a car in sweden on highways and simple roads and spots a sign like this one above you may pay an extra attention on the road because this sign means that the risk for that an elk is running across the road is bigger than normal, so heads up :P

A little funny thing about theese signs is that the Germans used to take them down from the roads and take them home. But that was back in the days and I would be very surprised if I saw someone do that :P

Anyway that was al from me no at this moment :P
Cya :P

Hi again I believe I forgott to tell you about one of my favourite swedish rock/punk band, Backyard Babies. :P

A video of backyard babies :P A Really good band, By the way, I don't think theese boys is so well-known, famous maybe around Europe but not world-wide.




Backyard Babies - People like, people like us

Just remebered how I forgot to tell you about pure swedish "drugs" or tobacco products actually and it's quite unic for Sweden and I don't think it's legal in so many other countries either. Of course I'm talkikng about Snus, swedish Snus is a tobacco product like cigarettes but it's like hard "mud" that you molds to a tiny box or dice or something like that :P and you put it under your lip and have it there for a while :P And like cigarettes snus contains nicote and therefore you can be addicted to it. So it's nothing I recommend you guys trying if you're visiting sweden, I brought it up just for it's swedish :) But if you're already addicted to cigarrettes you can try it because when you're used to the nicotine you're body respons less harmful, I think :P

I don't really know why it's not legal in other countries because it's not more dangerous than cigarrettes, in that case I really think Snus is better if you have to have nicotine, because you're only damaging yourself and don't blow out dangerous smoke to other none nicotine-addicted persons. But that's my opinion.

Last but not least a picture of pure swedish snus.