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What is a ‘kolonilott’ and why do Swedes love them so much?

It is a not too uncommon sight in Sweden’s cities to stumble upon what at first glance looks like a miniature town; small patches of land rife with little houses atop carefully cured gardens.

Published: 10 June 2021 15:38 CEST
Updated: 20 April 2023 15:24 CEST

What is a 'kolonilott' and why do Swedes love them so much?

Alottment in Eriksdalslunden, Stockholm. Photo: Alexandra Bengtsson/SvD/TT

The kolonilott or koloniträdgård is a popular way to access nature for the city dwellers of Sweden, with allotments being rented through allotment organisations. But where does this trend come from?

According to Koloniträdgårdsförbundet, the allotment movement began in the late 1800s and came to Sweden through Denmark and Germany. The politician and nurse Anna Lindhagen brought the movement to Sweden after first seeing them in Denmark.

Their purpose was originally to offer workers a place to grow food. As the cities grew in the late 19th century due to industrialisation, people moved from rural Sweden into cities to find work. Lindhagen saw the tough health conditions faced by the workers as a nurse and wanted to develop the allotments to offer workers and their children a place for everything from fresh air to homegrown food.

Anna Lindhagen (1870-1941) in her allotment at Fjällgatan, Stockholm, 1928. Photo: Pressens Bild

The first allotment association in Sweden was the Pildamm allotment in Malmö which was established in 1895 but which has been shut down since. The Citadellet in Landskrona (1904) and Söderbrunn (1905) are the oldest allotments still in use.

During the two World Wars, the allotments served an unexpected function; they were crucial to combat the food shortages in the cities. After the wars, as more people had access to cars, the interest fell. However, allotments have seen another upswing in the 2000s.

Family in front of their allotment in Eriksdalslunden, Stockholm early 1900s. Photo: Nordic Museum/Wikimedia Commons

So why do allotments remain so popular in Sweden?

Today, they are used less for food production and instead offer a chance for city dwellers to enjoy a garden that is more accessible than a summerhouse in the country. In an interview with real estate publication Hem & Hyra, allotment owner Lina Rylander says that the proximity to their apartment in the city and their children’s friends are both advantages which made them choose an allotment over a summer house.

An allotment in Sweden. Photo: Helen Alfvegren/Flickr

Getting an allotment can however be tricky, due to their popular demand. You both have to rent the patch of land from the local allotment association that owns it, and buy any cottage or shed on the land from the previous owner. The process varies slightly depending on the association; some allotment associations regulate the prices of the cottages while others sell them to the highest bidder.

The waiting time to get your hands on a patch of land is often long. Tanto Södra allotment association in Stockholm has one of the longest queues in the country, with 110 allotments, where according to their website, around four free up every year. At the same time, there are currently 580 people registered in its queue, with some 30 new people joining it every year. It is difficult to estimate how long it would take, although estimates say up to 20 years.

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Five suggestions for the next hyped Swedish lifestyle trend

We’ve all read them.

Articles in international media introducing people outside of Scandinavia to new “lifestyle trends”. It started with us being told to buy candles and fluffy slippers so we could practice hygge, then guides to decorate our homes in the supposed “style of lagom“.

Then we were told that taking a coffee break or a fika is somehow the route of Swedish happiness (to be fair, I am often happier after eating cake), given a checklist for Swedish death cleaning to get rid of clutter for future generations, and told to stand up for ourselves by practising Finnish sisu.

Now, the next big Scandinavian trend appears to be… the gökotta?

A gökotta, if you weren’t aware, is an old Swedish tradition of waking up early on Ascension Day to go and sit in a forest and try and hear a cuckoo.

I’ve lived in Sweden for a few years now and have never actually heard of anyone doing this – I think it’s only really practised by birdwatchers and churchgoers, if at all – but this hasn’t stopped various international media claiming that Swedes practise this lifestyle trend from Ascension Day to Midsummer.

With Scandinavian lifestyle trends becoming increasingly more obscure, we thought we’d provide our own examples for marketing executives and publishers everywhere to help push the Scandinavian brand abroad.

Extra points if they use letters that don’t exist in English, aren’t actually practised by anyone in Scandinavia, are not directly translatable, or are especially difficult for non-Scandinavians to pronounce.

1. The Swedish art of supa

This Swedish tradition is commonly practised by Swedes from their teenage years onwards, especially around big public holidays such as Midsummer, Easter and Christmas.

You’ll need to commit to this lifestyle trend, testing your body to its limits as you consume large amounts of alcohol – brännvin or akvavit are the most authentic choices, although any kind of alcohol will do – while you activate your brain by trying to remember the lyrics of drinking songs with increasingly incomprehensible subject matter.

The sign that you’ve encompassed the true spirit of the supa is when you find yourself in a trancelike state dancing around a maypole pretending to be a small frog with your friends and obscure relatives of your Swedish partner, who you only met a few hours previously.

You may recognise some elements of supa from your home country – there is no direct English equivalent, but a few translations could be “to drink yourself paralytic”, “to get smashed” or the more formal term “to binge drink”.

Of course, supa is not for everyone – it does result in the somewhat less aspirational states of illamående (nausea) and bakfylla (hangover) – so we won’t judge you if you’d rather give this lifestyle trend a miss.

Swedes practicing patience and zen in the queue for Systembolaget before the Easter holidays. Photo: Henrik Montgomery/TT

2. Experience patience, zen and part-time teetotalism with the Systembolaget lifestyle trend

Closely related to the art of supa mentioned above, you can practise Swedish patience and restraint with the Systembolaget lifestyle trend.

By willingly subjecting yourself to the structure of opening hours, carefully crafted through years of Swedish teetotalism, you will learn discipline, patience and the stress that only those rushing to pick up a bottle of wine on their way to a party before Systembolaget closes have known.

This can be a bit difficult in other countries which do not have a state-owned alcohol monopoly, but to get into the Systembolaget spirit if you live abroad, you just need to not buy alcohol between the hours of 10am and 7pm on weekdays or 10pm and 3pm on Saturdays.

What about Sundays, you may be wondering? Well, true observers of the Systembolaget lifestyle abstain completely from buying alcohol on Sundays and public holidays.

You can even brush up on your anger management skills as you attempt to buy a few beers or a bottle of wine on an obscure public holiday like Epiphany, Ascension Day or All Saints’ Day, or when you forget your ID ten minutes before closing and the cashier refuses to serve you, despite the fact you’re well into your 30s.

Finally, relish the opportunity to develop your skills of innovation and ingenuity as you find yourself in the kitchen on a Sunday making a recipe which calls for a glass of wine, only to discover that you forgot to pick some up at Systembolaget before it closed the day before.

A passive-aggressive note in its natural habitat, the laundry room. (“Whoever washed their clothes last night: clean up after yourself!”) Photo: Mats Andersson/Scanpix/TT

3. Tap in to the Swedish tradition of konflikträdsla

Another Swedish tradition ready for export is the lifestyle trend of konflikträdsla, or “fear of conflict”.

To get into the konflikträdsla spirit yourself, wait until your neighbour does something annoying. Are they holding a loud party and haven’t turned their music down one minute past curfew? Do they smoke on their balcony? Your first instinct may be to address the issue with them directly, but this is not the Swedish way.

Use this instead as an opportunity to tap into your most primal emotions such as anger, irritation and exasperation, then, instead of releasing this buildup of emotion in an angry outburst, use the ancient art of letter-writing to channel your feelings into arga lappar (angry notes) directed at the object of your fury instead.

The best way of experiencing arga lappar in the wild is to visit your closest laundry room or tvättstuga, use the tumble drier and neglect to remove the dryer lint. You may need to do this a few times, but after a few weeks you’ll soon find a note framed as a friendly reminder (which is probably not all that friendly) by an exasperated neighbour who you have driven to quiet but maddening rage with your actions.

A word of warning, though. Your neighbours will hold a grudge if you do this and they are unlikely to ever forgive you, so this should not be attempted if you ever want to be in their good books again.

A Swedish apartment stairwell as it should be… empty. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT

4. Hone your sense of perception in your Swedish apartment stairwell

If you have managed to irritate your neighbours to the point of them putting up arga lappar directed at you, this next Swedish lifestyle skill could be a good one to learn.

This lifestyle trend is the skill of avoidance, undvikandet, the Swedish art of doing everything possible to avoid having to greet your neighbours in the stairwell or, indeed, acknowledging their existence in any way.

Use undvikandet as a chance to heighten your senses of sound and sight to near-superhuman levels, as you become an expert at identifying movement in your building’s stairwell before you leave your apartment.

Before you learned the skill of undvikandet, you may have just left the apartment whenever you felt like it, regularly alarming your Swedish neighbours by acknowledging their existence with a hej hej as you passed by.

Now you carefully look out of your door’s peephole before venturing into the unknown, listening out for footsteps on the stairs before opening your door so you time your departure to avoid any unexpected ambushes.

Happy Friday! Time to eat so much sugar you feel sick, then avoid the stuff for another week. Photo: Johan Nilsson/TT

5. Indulge yourself with the Swedish art of fredagsmys

Our final Swedish lifestyle trend will help you gain control over your instincts and desires, improving your willpower as you practise restraint for five days a week by avoiding sweets or unhealthy snacks, only to give in to your primal urges and eat a week’s worth of unhealthy food in one sitting come Friday.

Akin to intermittent fasting, you can eat virtuously from Sunday to Thursday, then buy the largest bags of snacks or pick and mix you can find on a Friday evening and feast (frossa) on them until you go to bed on Saturday.

Sure, any dietary benefits throughout the week may be outweighed by giving into your hedonic urges when the weekend rolls around, but don’t let that stop you.

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