Why "Buffet" Born in Sweden?

Talk to such anecdot. A person enters the hotel, sees a table broken from the yoke, but for some reason there are no chairs. The visitor looks around, takes the chair standing at the empty table, moves it to what is stitched with food, and begins to. "What are you doing? — Matter runs up. — This is a buffet!" — "Here the Swedes will come, I will stand".

People who are not familiar with "Swedish table", Nowadays, it’s hard to imagine. The meaning of the brilliant, I will not be afraid of this word, the inventions of the Swedes is that for a certain and very reasonable price (for the guests of hotels or passengers of cruise ships, it enters generally)) You are offered a real name-self-banner: you can take food as much as you like.

Owners of hotel complexes and other attendants where there are "Swedish tables", do not suffer damages, but, on the contrary, have a stable income. It seems strange: after all, the total cost of dishes that can eat visitors is significantly superior to the conditional amount included in the offset. But the thing is that the possibilities of consumers, even the most voracious, are limited. Purely physiology. Man can not eat more than sticking the stomach. All that over will be rejected.

Today it is obvious to everyone, and therefore "Buffet" — Without exaggeration – won the planet. However, probably, it is not by chance that he aroused in Sweden. It is closely connected with the total culture of the behavior, distinguishing the inhabitants of this country, including food intake culture. About this, as well as about many other entertaining things, is in question in the book "Swedes and ours: the image of a neighbor", Olga Chernysheva belonging to Peru. Doctor of Historical Sciences, an employee of the Institute of Universal History of the our Academy of Sciences, it is the author more than a hundred work on various problems of the history of Sweden, as well as other Scandinavian countries. Most of her works, well-known specialists, is strictly scientific. A new essay that has yet to take its place on the counters of bookstores, has become the first experience in the popular genre.

— At some point, Olga Vasilyevna told me, – I thought it would be interesting to write exactly such a book, affordable and interesting things, about how ours and Swedes are watching each other. And then all scientific treatments, monographs, reports. Honestly, slightly fed. I wanted simple, ordinary language about ordinary life. Moreover, Russia and Sweden – neighbors countries associated with numerous bonds that are rooted deep into centuries. Mutual interest among the Swedes and ours always existed and persist in our days. I hope that my book, covering chronologically XIX – the beginning of the XX centuries, can help understand the nature of our neighbors and in something will be instructive for the current Russia.

And indeed it is. I lived for many years and worked in Sweden, but I read the book with passion. Moreover, it provides the opinions of many ours whose names are inscribed in the history of gold letters.

If you return to the subject of our conversation — "Swedish table", then one of the first of our compatriots who submitted it to the our reader was to.Scalkovsky. In the notes published in 1880 in St. Petersburg "Travel impressions. Scandinavians and Flemis" He described this overseas miracle: "Everyone requires the other, maids barely have time to sculpt the bottles. There is no accounting here; The table is a book, a pencil is tied to her on a pink ribbon and everyone himself is obliged to enter what he ate and drank, in the book. Upon departure, he also gives the result of his account. It is clear that all mistakes remain on the passenger’s conscience, but the Swedes prefer to lose something, rather than expose the traveler to humiliate control".

It is impossible not to notice that since the quoted rows written, model "Swedish table" was improved and simplified, but his noble spirit has been preserved.

After almost a third of the century publicist and scientist with.Sword also appreciated "Buffet", with whom he met in the railway buffet: "You enter the buffet – no servants. Buffetcher or Buffetcher do not pay any attention. On the table there are dishes, there are plates and plugs, knives and spoons. You yourself take yourself what you want – anyway lunch costs 2 franc. When you hurt, you give 2 franc and leave".

A particularly picturesque picture captured a wonderful writer Alexander Kubrin, who was treated in 1909 in Finland: "The long table was stitched with hot dishes and cold snacks. All this was unusually purely, appetizing and smart. There was fresh olosine, fried trout, cold roast beef, some kind of game, small, very tasty bokings and the like. Everyone came, chose what he liked, climbed how much he wanted, then approached the buffet and paid for a dinner exactly one brand thirty seven kopecks. No supervision, no distrust. Our our hearts, so deeply accustomed to the passport, a plot, forced care of the senior janitor, to universal fraud and suspicion, were completely suppressed by this wide mutual faith".

Alas, these idyllic impressions burned somewhat when the writer returned to the car, where his random travelers lively discussed the novelty with which they just met.

"When we returned to the car, – writes Kuprin, – we were waiting for a charming picture in a truly our genre. The fact is that we were driving two contractors on stone work. All this type of fist from the Meshovsky County, Kaluga province is known: a wide loving cheese red muzzle, red hair, curly from under the capita, a raden Borodynka, a plutish look, a piousness for five thousand, hot patriotism, and contempt for the whole non-our – in a word, good Familiar True our face.

It was necessary to listen to how they mocked poor Finns. "Here fool, so fool. After all, sort of nerds, the devil knows! Yes, because I, if you count, for three rubles ate for seven hryvnia, they have a scoundrel. Eh, bastard! Few them beat, bitch sons. One word – Chukhonians". And the other picked up, putting away from laughter: "And I. Discontinent glass of Cockpickn, and then I took it in fish and spat". — "So they need to bast!, — picked up his visa. — Disabled Anathema! They need to keep!".

With anger and contempt by quoting these vulgar statements, author "Pomegranate bracelet" Nevertheless, concludes: "And all the more pleasant to confirm that in this cute, wide, half-blooded country (meaning Finland. — Approx. Red.) already begin to understand that not all of Russia consists of the Contractors of the Meshchean County, Kaluga province".

Let the reader do not confuse the mention of Finland. Being before the beginning of the XIX century "near Sweden", This country has absorbed many Swedish traditions, including traditions "Swedish table".

I can confirm that these traditions are preserved in modern Sweden, as, indeed, in Finland, and in Norway. To honor of our compatriots, I did not have to see abroad of those who rushed to the table with a praying head, filling the plates to all in a row without disaster. Apparently, the total atmosphere of integrity, reigning in the dining room, has a beneficial effect on all, in it. Is it from somewhere on the part, the muffled offend will be heard: "Here is the beauty!". Or a surprised baby exclaim: "Dad, I can take it all?!". — "Yes, son, you can". — "And ice cream, and pineapples, and kiwi?!" — Does not immediately believe the baby.

A great impression on our people also produced honesty and law-abiding in the Swedes, which became a national character. Famous our writer Faddey Bulgarian, who visited Sweden in the late 1830s, wrote: "All travelers agree about Swedish honesty, good nature and hospitality. About theft here is not heard. This vile vice is dismissed even in black. Murders are extremely rare and happen only in fights. Throughout Sweden, the traveler is completely safe, and there is no example that the wanderer is killed or robbed, despite the fact that, traveling in Sweden, there should be forests, ravines and generally airless places. Swedes strong on the word and deceptions between them the greatest rarity".

And what is the situation in this regard now, nowadays? Unfortunately, the equally iris picture in the description of modern Sweden will not work. In this, once absolutely good-spanging and well-sustained country also leaked the bacillos of theft, rudeness, often – manifestations of violence against personality, murders happen. Perhaps this is the cost of opening Sweden to the world around the world, which and "Odaril" They are by these patterns "civilization". And yet, even taking into account this, it should be recognized that against the background of most other countries, Sweden looks better.

Very relevant for modern Russia, observations of the poet Vasily Zhukovsky, who visited Sweden as part of the suite of the heir to the our throne Cesarevich Alexander. The attention of the poet, deeply interested in politics and problems of state construction, attracted, in particular, the Constitution operates in Sweden. "Nearners of the current constitution, – wrote Zhukovsky, — . They are that corrections occur too slow . But this slowness . controlled by the hardness of the order established. Impossible to sacrifice the future of the state".

If you look at the current positions on what attracted the attention of the poet, it should be noted that in modern Sweden any constitutional law, that is, the law aimed at changing the Constitution, is considered approved only after its secondary adoption and RIXDAG of the new convocation.

"Any law in Sweden, "Olga Chernysheva writes a well-known problem – has long been accepted only after a long and comprehensive discussion, thinking, miscalculation of all its consequences. And this discussion is conducted not only in the country’s highest legislative body, but also in print, on television, that is, with the participation of the whole society. All this creates confidence in the law, confidence that the law provides for the optimal solution to any issue. It was the law that made the Swedes honest, his violation caused the greatest indignation of the Swedes at all times. This legitimate and law is, in fact, the stem of the modern Swedish society".

From here, the high political activity of the Swedes, well understanding that they depends on their personal position, how things will develop in the state.

Very accurately noticed this feature of the Swedes almost a half century ago Sophia Kovalevskaya. The first female professor of mathematics of the Higher Technical School of Stockholm, she contributed to the high level of emancipation that exists in this country today. "Like all people with a happy past, "wrote Kovalevskaya, – the Swedes are conservative on the very nature of their. Any new proposal is commonly found with some biased distrust. The Swede is harder to change his views, make sure that the insolvency once assimilated worldlyozenia than the our. But one day, making sure the need to change, the Swedes do not stop at half-threaters, do not soothe themselves with their innocence to the common cause, but, on the contrary, they consider themselves morally obliged to express a change in their views".

A lot of interesting observations and reflection on the nature of a Swedish character also contains in the travel notes Evgeny Markov, who traveled from Sweden at the very end of the XIX century. He notes not only the honesty of the Swedes and the reverence of laws, but also trying to find a explanation. "Everywhere you meet people well dressed, healthy, beautiful, performed feeling of self-esteem. The local people are decent, however, not one appearance. They are all so legally and honest that you can with a calm conscience, without any pre-trade, rely on what he will take with you for his work".

Among the many facts and thoughts contained in the book, which we flew together, I would allocate what I think the key: It was the law who did the Swedes honest. If we, ours, we will be as scrupulously obey the laws and live on them, then we can not avoid a good life.