Stockholm no longer has a district as beloved and mythologized as Södermalm. It is the most artistic part of the city, beautiful, hipster and cool. It is the most fashionable place to live, especially if you are a person of culture or media. On the fairytale street Bellmansgatan with a bridge suspended between residential buildings and roofs lived Mikael Blomkvist, the main character of the Millennium trilogy by Swedish writer Stieg Larsson. He lived in a huge apartment with a view of the island of Djurgården.
The market on Moses Hill is a unique place for many reasons. The incredible atmosphere, the steep slopes, the views, the old-fashioned telephone booth in the middle, the fountain with Nils Sjögren's sculptures "Sisters" - everything is mesmerizing.
The South Theatre also offers a great view of the city, and its stylish hanging façade can be seen from many points in Stockholm. The building, with its red velvet and light Parisian interiors, hosts good concerts and performances. The South Theatre is home to the excellent vegetarian restaurant Mosebacke Etablissement and the famous Mosebacke Terrace, where you can listen to music and drink beer in the summer. On May 29, 1890, Captain Victor Rolla, an extremely popular circus athlete of the time, took off from Mosebacke Terrace in front of a crowd of spectators and disappeared into the clouds. Unfortunately, he forgot to put in a parachute that would have allowed him to land, so the balloon flew towards the Stockholm archipelago, rising higher and higher until Captain Rolla simply froze to death. His body was found near the island of Lusterå. The death of the twenty-year-old youth caused a great stir and real despair among fans who had seen his performances on Mosebacke many times. 50 people attended Rolla's funeral.
Like everything beautiful, desirable, elite and expensive (apartments in Södermalm are the most expensive in the city), it does not evoke only positive emotions. The area is often mentioned as a symbol of the elite based in Stockholm. Its residents are accused of obsessive political correctness, hypocrisy and ideological superficiality.
Many people in SoFo, the hipster part of Södermalm, dress in second-hand stores, where the cheapest clothes cost $130. They are extremely environmentally friendly, as they ride their bikes to work and fly to Thailand for the winter holidays, although, as we know, long air travel does not have a positive effect on the atmosphere. According to opinion polls, the inhabitants of Södermalm are always the biggest supporters of openness, voting for left-wing parties, but at the same time they live in one of the least multicultural areas of the city. There are almost no suburbs in the area. Generations of pure Swedes live here. It is strange that in the declarations of Swedish culture the world is ideologically open to other nations, but reality does not confirm this.
Södermalm is the part of Stockholm that has undergone the fastest process of changing the character of an area inhabited by poor people into an area dominated by people with high material status.
At the beginning of the 20th century, Södermalm was a poor, cramped and hopeless place with no bathrooms. The now famous Sofo was in such a terrible state that they wanted to tear it down. The working class district, the most densely populated in the city, had a dialect so different from the Swedish school that it is completely incomprehensible today. They even had their own language, which was used mainly in Södermalm.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the number of Södermalm residents with very high incomes increased by 570 percent in fifteen years. The number of people with higher education doubled. Studio apartments were combined into larger apartments, attics were turned into penthouses.
