RUSSIAN in DENMARK // Looking for happiness in Copenhagen
Hi guys, welcome to my new video! This will be my vlog from Denmark, Copenhagen. And I swear it is just a coincidence that I'm starting to film this this video on the background of the Tuborg beer in the country where it originated. Besides this very important fact today we will learn some more interesting things about Denmark. We'll take a canal tour, dive into Danish history and visit a museum of happiness!
So in this video I will share with you my vision of this country as a person coming from Russia but also I will compare this city, Copenhagen, with Amsterdam. Because the Netherlands was the first Western European country I visited, so Denmark is the second one. And why is this order? Just randomly because I just got the Schengen visa exactly from the Netherlands Embassy.
And actually after this country I was planning to go to Sweden but I decided why not to stop by Copenhagen? aAnd oh my God, guys, I did not regret it. But I want to share some story that will show why this order is especially funny because, actually, I used to confuse Denmark and the Netherlands as countries and as languages. The thing is that in Russian, the word for the Dutch language which is the language spoken in the Netherlands, is [nʲɪdʲɪrˈɫan(t)skʲɪɪ̯] or [ɡɐˈɫan(t)skʲɪɪ̯], and Denmark, the country is [ˈdanʲɪɪ̯ə], and the language is [ˈdat͡skʲɪɪ̯]. So here comes the confusion; when I saw 'Dutch', the word in English, I would think that, well, Dutch sounds like [ˈdat͡skʲɪɪ̯], and I just completely forgot about the word 'Danish'. So for many years, when I was reading texts in English and seeing the word 'Dutch' there ,I thought that it's about Denmark, but no it's about Holland, the Netherlands.
And when I finally realized that was mistaken for all these years, I remember I was sitting there, what?? I was lied to for the whole my life! But anyway, today I finally have the opportunity to compare the Dutch and the Danish, and yeah the moment has come! And here's another thing that increases the contrast in comparison between these two countries, and again I didn't plan this but if in Amsterdam I stayed in a pretty spacious room, in Denmark I'm staying in a capsule hotel. So here is how it looks, and actually it is bigger than I expected because as you can see, I can sit up straight in my bed, and also I can even stand up here. And this not a capsule but rather a container room, it's shaped as a Russian letter G, so above me there are also people.
There are many containers like this and a shared restroom, and showers, and even sauna. And the restroom looks so futuristic, I really like this design. Also in the lobby there is a hangout area, a kitchen where you can store your food. And I bought some chicken at 7-Eleven, stored it in the refrigerator, and 2 days after that I couldn't find it.
It's either I'm dumb or someone ate my food. I know that a typical capsule hotel has a very small narrow room which would be less comfortable, but here I really like it, especially this lighting I was able to choose it. Okay and now let's go and explore this city! Here I found such an interesting playground made in shape of pterodactyl but it's also a spider web for children to climb.
In Russia I'm used to either metal or plastic things. That kind of prepare you for the harsh life in the Eastern Europe since the childhood. But I like this approach more, with using natural materials and some abstract art.
And look at this interesting sculpture! Yeah, poor, Gena Krokodil, the decaying West completely destroyed him. And these seems to be like regular apartments, they look so fancy. Some table for... feeding birds or maybe for some game that I'm not familiar with? Some nice graffiti, and here there is such a wild park, very nice. But there is also trash! Ew, West is decaying Wow, hello my little friend! My little slow friend. So beautiful. Oh there's another one, here's one more, wow.
Hi, Gary, is this your child? And now I want to tell you how I entered this country because there also was a difference with Amsterdam. Because as I showed in my previous video, when I first entered the Schengen zone flying from Georgia, I was asked many questions at the passport control, and I was expecting the same process here. But apparently, and I heard about this but still didn't expect that when you're traveling within the Schengen area, it's not required to make a stamp in your passport. So I entered the airport and there was no checking, only when I was already approaching their baggage claim area, there were two officers, and I almost didn't notice them. And they didn't ask me but asked some man who had a big suitcase and also he didn't look European, probably, that's also the reason but they asked like 'sir, can you come with us and we'll check your baggage?' I am really glad that I didn't have the same situation that I had in the Netherlands. And now slowly but surely let's go to the city center.
Now I'm going to embark on a boat, and it will be a guided tour over the canals in English. And I got this tour for free because I also bought a tourist card here, Although I feel that it was unnecessary because it was expensive for 3 days, and I don't think that I will visit all the museums. So yeah, now I'm in the city center, I have to say that the city center here feels so much calmer than in Amsterdam because yeah, it is a smaller city. So I entered this only pedestrian street it's called, sorry to pronounce it wrong, Strøget or something like this, I would read it as 'stro-get'. And yeah, it really reminds me of Moscow, it looks like Old Arbat Street in Moscow. It's also very fancy, a lot of stores and cafes. Finally, the tour started and we saw this famous Little Mermaid. [Guide:] Now, looking at her, I know
what you're thinking, 'Peter what the hell is this? She's tiny, we can only see her backside!' I was surprised to learn that Denmark once had one of the biggest fleets in Europe. Also, we learned about the unique Danish block architecture, and by by the way Lego was invented here as well. And then we passed some concert where they were singing a song about... 'Sweden...' But I mean aren't Denmark and Sweden kind of similar... Okay, before you destroy me in the comments, I will prove to you that I am actually respectful because after that I went to a museum to learn more about Danish history.
I've just visited this place, the National museum of Denmark. It was an ethnographic museum with exhibitions about peoples and cultures from all over the world; from Americas, Oceania, Africa, But honestly I was mostly interested in Greenland and the Inuit people. It was so unusual to see the map of Greenland but from a different angle, not how we Europeans are used to look at the world. It shows a whole new perspective and how the Inuit people lived in Greenland but also in the islands of North America, Alaska, and even Russia there in the corner. There also was a map of Russia, the Siberian region, and I even found a place where my hometown is located. And it reminded me of the fact that Russia also has connections and relations with people living in the Arctic, for example, on the Chukchi peninsula.
I would love to explore this all, I always wanted to visit the Chukotka region, and now I feel so sad that I am not in Russia and I cannot return there and visit this all. So I only can learn about this in this exhibition in Denmark for some reason... But it's worth to say that in Russia I would not see such an exhibition focusing on the colonialism past, because unfortunately in those regions that I mentioned, there's like despair everywhere around.
After my previous video about Amsterdam, where I talked about Dutch colonialism, I got a few comments where people implied that I overlooked Russian colonialism. Probably those people didn't watch my videos and don't know my views on Russian politics which is okay. But of course, Russia is a colonial Empire the difference only being that its colonies were on the land. In today's Russia unfortunately there is no public discussion about it. Well
there are many other topics that you cannot discuss in Russia now. Anyway, back to Denmark. Another thing that is so different here from the Netherlands is how white this country is. Because compared to Amsterdam, here in Copenhagen, I see fewer people of color, mostly it's white and blond people, and I've also learned that immigration policies of these two countries are different, and I was surprised to know that the immigration policy of Denmark is the strictest in Europe. Maybe also it's because it is a smaller country, if the Netherlands population is about 17 million, here it's only 5 million. So this country seems really mono ethnical and monolingual to me. I was surprised how restrictive some of the policies are. But probably this is
what worked for this country, if they started to do this several years ago. I understand why such a small country would want to keep their identity and their culture, and the only thing I'm worried about is how they will carry out these restrictive policies without harming immigrants who already live in this country. Because I wanted to learn more about the topic of immigration here, I went to YouTube watched some well balanced analytical video about this but the comments are just terrible. I don't want to believe that there are real people who write these hateful comments. And I don't think
that these comments contribute to good of the society, of both local people and immigrants. So, yes... I like this grass on the roof, and there is a solar battery too. Another interesting thing is that Denmark almost didn't have colonies. Okay, they did and there was Greenland, before they also colonized other parts of the world, but as I found out, they sold these colonies to Great Britain pretty early, like in the 19th century.
That's why when I was in Amsterdam, I learned a lot about the Dutch colonization of Surinam and Indonesia, especially. But here in Denmark even when I visited that ethnographic museum, they did talk about colonization but mostly referring to Greenland. But the vibe was different from what I saw in the Netherlands. Speaking of the public transport, with my tourist card I have a free ride on all the metros, so now I'm going to the underground, and I have a word to say about that as well, and also of course about the bikes.
I learned that Copenhagen is fighting with the Amsterdam for the right to be called the world's bike capital. And honestly I don't know who deserves such a status because, well, the guides in both countries say the opposite. And another interesting thing is that people here have not only bikes, but this kind of bikes with a box. You can transfer goods or even other people, but okay now let's go to the underground. Another unusual thing is that here they have elevators, but probably I will use another one.
Here it says '2019', so it's probably a renovated station. Honestly it doesn't look like any metro system I've ever visited, and I visited underground in Moscow ,St Petersburg, Uzbekistan, Armenia, the US, and here it looks more like I'm entering some mall, you see? I noticed that the local people tap their card of this thing all the time but I don't have to do this because with my tourist card it says that I don't have to tap it. Only I have to present it to the tickets inspector upon request. But probably local people think that I'm just sneaking, not paying for the ride. Honestly I feel very safe here, so far I have not seen any weird people who say say something crazy or insult other passengers as I saw in Amsterdam. Maybe because it is a smaller city. And my train is coming in 1 minute and a half. But actually later I found out that there are these more traditional metro stations without these fancy glass doors, and judging by the map they in fact make up the majority of metro lines in the city.
And speaking of weirdly behaving people, they are present here as well, sitting outside of the station and singing something. Okay, I think it's in every city like this... On my way I found these cargo containers which made me wonder why there's so many of them in Denmark? I learned that this famous shipping company, Maersk, originated here. Have you ever seen this in your city? Because for me it is so familiar, even in the Russian Far East we have them. And as a kid, I thought that these containers come from a city named Mayorsk, and 'mayor' is an officer rank in Russia.
So I thought it's a city of policeman or something like this. Anyway, it seems that the Danes really think outside the box, quite literally, using this containers for all sorts of different purposes: So I want to show you this interesting place and I saw it when I was on the boat tour, but I googled this and learned that this is actually a coliving space, students leave here. And on their website it says that a price for a small square studio starts from €1,200 per month, and for the whole container it's about €1,500. But yeah, it's very interesting I would like to see some other projects like this. And now I'm in the place that is called Reffen food court, and there are many different cuisines, and it is a venue made of reused containers, as you can see. I love it, I love this aesthetics.
Maybe it is that practicality and simplicity that help Denmark rank among the happiest countries in the world? I also visited the happiness Museum and I want to tell you about this place. It tells about happiness, basically, and how it is studied by scientists all over the world. And when I went to that museum, it was the beginning of the day I've had the Danish coffee, which oh my God, I must say is amazing here. I was really cheered up when I entered this museum, but I want to should share some story because in the beginning there was something that made me nervous. So the woman at the reception greeted me and she spoke with some Eastern European accent, so I assumed she might be Ukrainian or Russian. So after I bought the ticket, she asked me 'Where you from?', and I said 'Russia'.
And I usually say just Russia, but if people ask further I would say that 'yes but I moved to Georgia two years ago, now I live in Georgia', but here I said just 'Russia', and her next question was 'Are you happy there?' And I answered 'Um, no that's why I moved from there to Georgia'. And then this woman kind of interrupted me and said 'That's why I moved here from Ukraine.' And I wanted to highlight the fact that I moved from Russia and now live in Georgia to show to her that actually my political position is that I support Ukraine, but I don't even know if she heard that I said that I live in Georgia, because she answered me so quickly that she is from Ukraine. But after that she immediately switched to Russian with me and she said something 'What do you know about this museum?' and it was so pleasant for me that she switched to Russian with me, and my first answer to her was actually 'Oh, wow, it's so unusual to speak Russian with someone here!' So I answered to her in Russian, and to that she said to me, apparently, in Ukrainian, I don't remember, it was like 'Yeah, but actually I speak Ukrainian mostly'. And after that I was like 'Oh my God, no, why I was so happy when I said to her that ;oh it's so nice to speak with someone in Russian?' But then she continued to speak in Russian with me, and again asked something about the museum, do I know about the hygge lifestyle, and then I went on to explore the museum by myself. After that I stood there and I just couldn't digest this conversation.
Like nothing bad happened, also the fact that she switched to Russian with me. But what makes me calmer is the fact that after that I heard that she asked Americans the same questions, 'Where are you from?' and they answered 'the US', she also asked them 'Are you happy there?, and they were like 'Uh, sometimes'. So still I'm not sure if she heard that I'm from Georgia... or maybe it doesn't
matter? Because well I personally have not yet interacted with Ukrainian refugees. Yes, in Tbilisi I even filmed a video about a volunteer center that helps Ukraine Ukrainian refugees, but still mostly there were Russian volunteers around me, and honestly I cannot imagine what my conversation would be if I meet with people from Ukraine somewhere here in Europe. But now I want to tell you something more about this museum. It's ironic, again, but there I had some kind of a rage attack, not attack but I felt so angry after the conversation with Ukrainian woman, who left her house as a refugee because the war waged by Russia. So here I started to look through the exhibition, and there was a Soviet poster with Stalin, smiley children, but there on the information plate it said that 'by statistics people from post-soviet countries feel less happiness'.
And again, standing there, coming from Russia, having met a Ukrainian person and seeing these Soviet posters, I felt so disgusted by the Russian government. Again especially that's what I started to feel in the Netherlands already, and here in Denmark. Especially here, from Europe, actions of Russia seem even more barbaric, like the Russian government and the army now looks as a band of goons now even more. Of course, it was obvious to everyone even before, but now when you see this functioning society, people that trust their government, and when you see what other governments are doing... And when I come from that country, and when I remember how my parents live, how my friends live, that my childhood friend actually died at that war, and so many life stories that I know from Russia, uh... it's just so frustrating. But still my experience at that museum wasn't exactly negative because I really enjoyed it. It
was my first time ever in a museum where I read every information plate. There were some things that I knew before, for example, that the richest countries are not necessarily the happiest, and the good example is the Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland and Finland. There was a lot of interesting facts, and also I realized how much happiness depends on just health and on biology, on chemistry, there was info about all these hormones and chemicals, dopamine and all that stuff. And I realized that I just have to spend more time in the nature and do more exercises.
I learned about the hygge concept and what it means for people in the Nordic countries. It is still something that I don't understand but as the info there said, it is something that is not about place but about the feeling. For some reason it has a lot to do with candles, at least for the Danes. And it was funny to learn that some businesses abuse this concept of hygge, so it's called 'hyggewashing'.
One thing that made me even more unhappy in the Happiness Museum, there was a room where people would stick notes of what brings them happiness, and there were many different words, but there was especially one place dedicated to Ukraine. People wishing peace to Ukraine ,which I agree with, but also there was something like 'I want Russia to disappear'. For me it is so strange to see, like Russia never will disappear. In the future, I believe that Russia will be a free country. So I decided to stick my note, and there I wrote 'Freedom to Russia and peace to Ukraine'. Probably
there were other notes like this but they were removed by maybe some people from Ukraine? And maybe mine will be removed as well, and well, I just have to understand this and accept this. I've just took a 40 minutes bus ride, and I'm already in another country, in Sweden, the city of Malmö. And I actually crossed that famous bridge that connects Copenhagen and Malmö, you might have heard about this from the series 'The Bridge', where there is a murder that happens on the territories of both countries, so the police departments of both Denmark and Sweden have to investigate.
I heard about this only from the series but now I personally... well, I haven't seen any changes, but probably it's normal that Malmö and Stockholm will look like Copenhagen for me. And so far I want to share my overall impressions from Copenhagen and Denmark. What a nice river! To conclude, I would say that I just loved Copenhagen. It was the first
time when I did not feel anxiety almost. Maybe it's because it is a smaller city, maybe it's just the country itself. I also think that a big contributor to this is that Amsterdam was my first Western European city to visit, it was the beginning of my journey, and I was extremely anxious and scared, especially after that questionnaire the passport control. And in Denmark, it was more relaxed, maybe it also has a lot to do with the hygge lifestyle? but yeah, I definitely want to return to Denmark. Speaking of immigration, I would love to live in Copenhagen but I think it would be so difficult to integrate into the society. But it's useless to even think
about this because the immigration policy in Denmark is very strict, as I found out. So this is the end of my video about Denmark, Copenhagen. I hope you enjoyed it. Write in the comments your opinion, maybe you are from Denmark and you will have something to add. Like this video, subscribe to my channel, thank you very much for watching and and being on this European journey with me! Have a good day, and goodbye, poka-poka!
2024-09-27 23:00
