[English] - So ,what's up youtube! This is Conor, the Language Tsar, and today I'm going to take
a journey, little trip that I've been thinking about for the last few summers
that I've been coming to Ukraine and that's to go to Gammalsvenskby.
Gammalsvenskby, believe it or not, is a village where apparently if I'm to
believe what I see on the internet, there are people who speak Swedish which is
completely crazy. This guy is the connection between Sweden
and Ukraine. This dude is Yaroslav the Wise. He
was the Grand Prince of Velyky Novhorod and Kyiv. Now what's interesting is that
he married the daughter of the King of Sweden so surprisingly there is this
bloodline between Sweden and Ukraine that goes back to the 11th century and
moreover, one of his daughters in fact married the future King of Norway, that
Scandinavian connection was preserved through intermarriage. Now that's not
where the connections between Sweden and Ukraine actually end. In 1709 the Swedish
army suffered a defeat of Poltava which lies in modern-day Ukraine and there is
actually the end of the expansion of the Swedish Empire, they were defeated by the
Russians and it marked the end. The Swedish Empire started to decline, the
Russian Empire continued to expand. Have you ever heard of Swedish village in Ukraine?
[Swedish] - I've heard someone saying that
but I've never been there.
I'm not really sure it exists.
[English] - Have you been there? Is it true? - That's what I'm gonna find out in the video.
I'm about to hop on the bus, so let's go to Kherson and then in the morning
to the Swedish village in Ukraine called 'Gammalsvenskby'.
So here we are in Kherson which is the closest city to Gammalsvenskby. We're
very close to Crimea, we're just on the shores of the Dnieper River and today is
actually the city's birthday. Prost! Cheers! Sláinte! And I guess in Ukraine we should
say 'Будьмо' or ' За здоровье'.
So we have some of the equipment ready for the trip, so we're about to leave
Kherson and go to Zmiivka which is the village that Gammalsvenskby is part of.
This is kind of exciting because we don't really know if there are Swedish
speakers there or not. I mean I just read some things online and this is a similar
experience to what I had when I was in Brazil and there I went to look for a
Ukrainian village. No one had heard about it, none of the locals but it did exists.
So I'm really optimistic than when we get there, there'll be some Swedish
speakers. So let's go to Zmiivka!
I'm not sure exactly but does that sound like Swedish? Not really sure but what do you guys think?
[Russian] - There are people that, for example, speak Swedish at home?
- Just the old ones.
Well, the children in school were taught Swedish by a Swedish teacher.
- Is there a school here? - Now not but there was. It was she that taught them, organized tours to Sweden for them.
- Do many people come to the shop that are interested in Swedish history or to find relatives?
- Yes, there are many. The king was here. - The Swedish king? - Yes. - It was shown in the TV.
- Thanks to this they made a road. We didn't have the direct road.
- Is here the active church in the area?
- There are: here there is a Swedish one, then - the Orthodox, and soon the Catholic one is open.
[English] - So here we are! We made it. There actually is some Swedish, culturally some evidence
of Swedish culture. This village was originally three villages and two were
German and one was Swedish so there's going to be a mix we're looking for in
terms of architectural legacy from both those German and Swedish settlers who
came here. The actual church looks like it's been recently painted so there's
definitely been some money invested in maintaining this. As you can see the the
river ... we're right on the river Dnipro which is the main river in Ukraine and so
we're also interested to see if we can spot anything in the faces of people
here to suggest that they have some Swedish or maybe even German ancestry
not just the normal mix that you find here in Ukraine which is predominantly Slavic.
So here I am in front of the memorial written in Swedish and it
actually says 'in memory of the innocent Swedish villagers who were lost and or
disappeared' so this is during the great terror by Stalin where he basically had
huge numbers of people murdered, and now we're in the Swedish part of the village
and this is really what Gammalsvenskby is. We have this church here, this
Swedish Lutheran Church and now we're gonna go look and see if we can find
people actually still speak Swedish. So let's see if they exist or if this is
something that it's just in Fantasyland.
So here we are, outside the house of a real Swedish speaker in the south of
Ukraine. So let's go and see what she has to say.
[Russian] - They were saying that you one of those
who speak Swedish very well.
[Swedish] - Gammalsvenskba! Hello! How are things? Are you good or bad?
[Russian] - Are you good or bad? - What is your name?
- Maria Malmas. - Maria Malmas
- I was born here. In Gammalsvenskby.
And my father was born here, and my mother, and my children, and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren
- How old are you? - Guess!
- You speak 4 languages, don't you? - I don't speak in 4 languages, no.
I speak very well in Swedish. My parents were Swedish
And we always spoke old Swedish
Do you understand Swedish? - Just a bit.
- It was in 1782 Katerina II the Great
invited Swedish people here. There was nothing here. - Nothing here before.
My grandpa was born here in 1872
100 years after the moment when Swedish started to live here.
- Have you been in Sweden? - Yes, my brother and me
were there in 1975, it was Soviet Union.
Near me the mother of the husband of my daughter lived, they both are German - Woldemar.
We were visiting masses in church, were singing and speaking Swedish,
the funerals were in Swedish
[Swedish] The way that people live in Gammalsvenskby has been the same for a long long time.
We are celebrating Swedish traditions
and my children have Swedish names. For example, the Swedish name: Arvid.
[English] - So I'm about to leave Gammalsvenskby, it's been an interesting time here. So far we've
managed to get a good overview of the history, speak to lots of locals. Swedish
language and culture is not as strong as people claim it was a generation ago
which is no surprise as people have been here now for a few generations and cut
off from Sweden but they have had great visitors, like the king came here also
Carl Bildt came to visit, the former foreign minister of Sweden, so it still
has occasionally a connection with a, I guess, motherland that is Sweden.
So if you like this video then give it a big thumbs up, subscribe if you already
aren't and be sure to go and check out my free training program, there's a link
to that below the video in the description so it's до побачення (goodbye),
до свидания and most importantly, Hej då! from the Oleshky Sands in the very south of
Ukraine near to Kherson, which is actually this big area that's kind of
like a desert that's a bit crazy to find in the middle of nowhere. So see you in