Sweden now: the world’s conscience. The only country on the planet that actually follows the Kyoto Protocol and your ready made source for benevolent diplomats.

Sweden round about the mid 17th century: the bullying bad ass of the Baltic. Well, OK, that’s a little too alliterative, but you get the point. Warring, deluging, where ever that was going on, the Swedes, they were sorta the instigators.

I guess the Swedes were feeling all contrite about all of this, so to make it up to the Poles and the other people they stole from, they recently put up this exhibition at the National Armory, where all the ill begotten goods the Swedes gained during its many wars with its neighbors in the region were put on display. This was kind of a big deal, because it even made it into the New York Times. This little sleepy corner of the world only makes it into the news when someone wins the Nobel Prize and gets to shake hands with the adorable King or something really weird happens like Bill Murray drives a golf cart through downtown Stockholm or someone tries to name their child “Metallica.” Both of those things I just mentioned actually happened. Within the last year.

Well, since my homeland was sorta mistreated by the Swedes, I had to go and see the loot. This exhibit was kind of funny. Unintentionally funny, and I’ll explain that in the pictures. First a look at what was so valuable, it had to be carted away, en masse:

The plates are nice enough and the book? Well, according to the info provided by the exhibit, Sweden was kind of illiterate and backward back then and they didn’t really have any books for their universities or libraries. I guess it was easier to steal them.

This exhibit was kind of interesting. They provided names and provenance for the all the loot:

Yes, blurry photos, but as usual, I was sneakily shooting things and generally think flash kind of ruins things. Now what is interesting about those signs is that they are only in Swedish. As was this:

I get it, yes, we are in Sweden after all, but in most of these museums in fair Stockholm, some measure of English is usually provided in the exhibits. This one had virtually none. I kind of got to thinking that maybe the Swedes figured out that the people coming to see the loot may be from the countries from wence the loot came and didn’t want to call attention to Sweden’s Attila the Hun like past? Perhaps. And, looking at some of these goodies taken from their great, disappearing neighbor to the South that isn’t Germany, I could see why the Poles would be cheesed off that these things were taken:

That thing above looks like the height of destruction technology round about 1650.

And I couldn’t see why a Catholic country like Poland would get angry to have this thing stolen:

Or these things for that matter:

What would I wear with this outfit?:

Oh wait, here’s the perfect accessory:

I was expecting there to be loads of stuff at this exhibit, but there were three rather small rooms. Like I said, I am thinking the Swedes don’t want to call more attention than is needed to their past. I tried to photograph an explanation of what I believe was a visit by Olaf Palme to Poland in the 1970s to (I think) apologize for the past, but it wasn’t coming out. A short consultation with the internets also brings up nothing about that. Darn.

Anyway, at the end of it, there was a little instructional film about how looting is OK:

Winning the hearts of minds are we now, Emerald city denizens? Right. More? OK:

My friend I was there with said that the movies were meant to illustrate that looting is still bad. This time I didn’t believe the fair explanation of things. I jumped to my own conclusions. Oh well.

Sweden, love of my life, this heartbreak will take a while to get over, OK?