June 25, 2026 • 37 mins
The sort of commune of Freetown Christiania in Denmark may not be what it used to be, but it's still true to many of its original values. Learn all about this unique neighborhood today.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're going on over
to foggy Copenhagen town. Yeah, for this episode of Stuff
you should know.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
That's right, because we were talking about a little sort
of village neighborhood, anarchist commune in Copenhagen, Denmark called Freetown Christiania,
which was founded in nineteen seventy one, and it has
a pretty interesting story. Well, he continues to.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
You had me an anarchist squatter commune. Yeah, so it is.
I think there's something like eight hundred nine hundred residents there,
depending on who you ask. And they just basically showed up.
They set up shop in this former military base and
they said we're not leaving. This is a free, free territory.
(01:02):
And in fact, when you walk into Christiania, I just
want to say, Christiana is so bad.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I know me too.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That extra eye just throws me off. But it doesn't
matter because I'm foreign to this. I'm foreign to the
people of Denmark, so I will say I will just
deal with it, right, that's right. At any rate. When
you walk into Christiania, there's a sign that says you
are now leaving the European Union.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, pretty cool. So the backstory here is in the
seventeenth century, that's the sixteen hundreds, by the way, and
Copenhagen they built a big fortress and some ramparts there too,
you know, as protection obviously, because that's what ramparts are.
And in the eighteen thirties they built in our artillery
barracks there. They grew over the course of the nineteenth century,
(01:48):
but then in the nineteen hundreds Denmark was like, you
know what, no one's gonna come after us. We're Denmark.
Everyone pretty much likes this, so we don't need this
kind of presence here. And so in nineteen sixteen the
southern part of the base was closed and actually like
converted by the country into a park. Then in nineteen
(02:08):
sixty one parts of the ramparts on the northern end
were transferred to the public, and then about six years later,
between sixty seven and seventy one, they finally the military
got out of it all together, and there was a
completely abandoned military base there by nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, so I mean and it's pretty decent size. Part
of it's a park, so it's alluring. It's in the
middle of essentially downtown Copenhagen, so it's kind of like
attractive to people. You know, it's not out in the
middle of nowhere. It's like, right there, let's do something
with it. And there is a neighborhood right next to
(02:45):
it called Christian Christian's Hoven Christians Haven if you anglicize it,
and they apparently the parents there kept tearing down the
security fences to allow their children to go in and
play in this abandoned military barracks.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You know, I actually looked up the V in Denmark
and how you treated that thing?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Did I? Butcher?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
It?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is that how I went?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, I don't know, because I bet you're probably right,
But what the internet said was that the V. And
I'm sure someone can write in and let us know
that the V is pronounced like a V when it's
in the front of a word, but is treated as
a W when it's in the middle or rear of
a word.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Okay, so let me try this again.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Christian's holland maybe that's how they pronounced it. I don't know.
I'm actually I'm genuinely curious because that's always thrown me.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Chris John's hollowin. That's what I'm going.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
With, all right, that's what I'm going with too.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay, Well, anyway, it's a neighborhood and they tore down
the fence, and apparently the local authorities I think the
military at first, and then the government kept building the fence.
They're like, this is to keep you out. Stop tearing
it down. And the parents in the neighborhood said never,
and they kept tearing it down. Finally, the government just
gave up and just left it to them to let
their children play.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, so it became a kid's playground. In October of
nineteen seventy one, there's a guy named Jacob. Here's another bee.
I'm gonna say, lugwigs and sure if the Internet is correct,
and he is the or was then the editor of
a Actually it turns out it's the most popular kind
of counterculture rag in Denmark called the hod Blad.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
It means new leaf.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Oh I saw it, the main paper.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Oh, the main leaf. That's what I saw.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Okay. I like new leaf too, because you can turn
those over and good things happen.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So he was the editor of that thing. He needed
some you know, some content to put in there. One week,
and so he and some of his buddies went and
did you know, kind of a fun little hey, we're
going to take over this old barracks. And so they
did an article. They took pictures of them, like having
picnics and having and waving around air rifles and you know,
you'll have to remember this is just after the military
(05:06):
had left it, so it's very much like an anti
war sort of little fun piece they were doing. And
in the article he said civilians have taken over the
Forbidden City, except he said it in the language there.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah. And he also in the article that he wrote
to accompany it, he said, hey, there's a bunch of
different things we could do with this old military base.
But there's a housing crisis right now. The prices of
apartments and rents and all that are really really high.
So young people are getting forced out of the city
or can't move to the city. Let's turn this into
(05:42):
affordable housing. And he said, and by affordable housing, I
mean just free, come build your house here. Let's turn
this into an anarchist compound. And they I think the
local Colorful community answered the call pretty much immediately.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, I mean, you put out a call for anarchist commune,
free rent, and doesn't matter where you are in the world,
you're going to get some people knock out on your
door pretty quickly with their petuli and their hackey sacks.
And they were all in, certainly in Denmark. As far
as the name Christiania, there's a bunch of stories that
could have been named after the king who commissioned the barracks,
(06:20):
or maybe a twist on that neighborhood that you talked about,
the Christian showing, or maybe Oslo pre nineteen twenty five.
So no one can quite pinpoint exactly why it was
named Christiania, but that is what it was so dubbed.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Right, and that's what it's still dubbed today because it
is probably the most successful anarchist squat in history.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
It's been around for seventy years or no, fifty years.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Hey, buddy, I was born in seventy one.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Sorry. Yeah, it's been around as long as Chuck and
Chuck's been around, so it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, it's fifty five years old. Just to say it
like you said it was. I don't know if you
said it, but they had a pretty good start there
because you know, it was just abandoned by the military
in nineteen seventy one, so it's not like it was
falling apart or anything like that. It wasn't like fancy,
but the buildings were all pretty great, and they had
electricity and running water. And as they got going, it
(07:20):
wasn't like, hey, let's get together and be a community.
It was just like, hey, you can come here and
do whatever you want. But one thing I love about
people is when you get enough people together for a
period of time, they don't like too much chaos, and
they all tend to come together. I feel like, maybe
it doesn't always work out, but initially I feel like
(07:42):
they all seemed to come together and say like, hey,
let's get like organized a little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah. It's very hobsy in yeah. And the point of
that is that this group that started out as an
anarchist commune and not even a commune, I guess, just
a bunch of anarchist squatters, formed an anarchist commune. They
like you said, they came together. They started making rules
because even anarchists love rules.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
The first rule was no violence, which is a pretty
good first rule, and that was the only rule for
quite quite a long time actually, And the way that
these anarchist squatters who lived in Christiania enforced the rules
was through like social pressure, exclusion, shunning. They they policed themselves, right,
(08:30):
so if you if you did commit violentce, you would
be forced out of this neighborhood one way or another.
And that was essentially one of the first things they
came together to do was to kind of self police.
And then the second thing they came together to do
was to take care of the trash. Yeah, because there
are two things that people do in any situation, especially
(08:51):
when there are no rules. They'll fight and they'll generate
garbage and just leave it places.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, so they said, hey, you know, that was literally
like the first thing they did is they formed a team,
a garbage team to deal with the waste. Businesses started
to open up a little bit, and it didn't take long.
Within a few years kind of like by the mid seventies,
it was it's, you know, own little society in there.
They had communal bass that they built, they had cafes,
they had shop collectives, they had a Kindergarten. They had
(09:22):
a theater, a few theaters, I think, but the largest
is the Gray Hall, which is still there today. I
think I looked up the capacity. It looks like it.
See it's about fifteen hundred people.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And they've had some like Bob Dylan played there. Metallica
and Rage Against the Machine both played there, so.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Did no effects Morrissey Prodigy. Did Morrissey show up though
probably not he was scheduled. Yeah, and I saw Steve
Ignorant from Crass played there too. Who's that? I don't
know that Crass, the punk band Crass, Yes you have.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I have never heard of them, and.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I know you listened to everything I say.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
All right, So Christiana was obviously I think they had
their their motto at Versus Black Sheep from all Classes Unite.
And they attracted a lot of artists, obviously early on
and still the place is kind of teeming with art
if you you can just look up pictures or you
can go on YouTube, and there are quite a few
YouTube videos of people just doing like a little walking
(10:23):
tour of Freetown, Christiania, and it's awesome. It looks like,
you know, there's murals everywhere. They started hosting plays and
musicals at the Gray Hall over the years, and it's
just sort of a lovely place if you're into art,
you know, any kind of visual or musical art.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, I think I said there were about eight hundred
and nine hundred residents. I saw about one hundred and
fifty of those are kids, and there are children who
are raised. Like you said, they've established kindergartens there. And
there's a guy named Lucas Forshammer. He's the lead singer
of a group, a band called Lucas Graham and they
(11:04):
sing in English. I think they're big ish from what
I saw, it's kind of pop country almost. He was
born and raised in Christiania, and I was reading a
Rolling Stone article with him, and it was really interesting
him because he seems very mellow and nice and open.
But one of his quotes was that he learned how
to mix a Molotov cocktail before he learned how to
(11:25):
mix a Long Island iced tea.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Wow, which is interesting because they generally, I mean, we'll
talk about think when things got a little violent, but
they're a peaceful people.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
They are, but they also, you know, the cops show
up whenever they want and this is like a group
of anarchist squatters and they don't really like police presences,
and yeah, yeah, so it's a there's this real undercurrent
under this whole story, because the there's a it's a
generally positive story, but you also can't forget we're talking
about anarchists squatting in the middle of a modern city
(11:57):
and being pressured from outside and pushing back on that
pressure in ways that you know you can't forget.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, for sure. So I think we sort of teased
a bit of a dark side. And why don't we
take a break and we'll talk about another type of
person who moved to Christiania right after this. All right,
(12:40):
So we mentioned that lots of like cool, free spirited
artists moved to Christiania and put on plays and musicals
and painted walls and did all kinds of fun stuff
open shops and cafes. But also that became the what
was known as the green Light District where even though
marijuana was illegal and Denmark, they would sell drugs there,
mainly pot, and it was called Pusher Street. They sold
(13:02):
the street where they sold the drugs was ended up
being called Pusher Street. It was generally like I said,
selling weed and hash not the biggest deal. But anytime
you have that kind of thing, you know somebody will
come in wanting heroin or acid or you know, whatever
you name a drug, and harder drugs did kind of
(13:23):
come in and it got pretty out of hand and
they had a lot of problems with the cops and
eventually gangs over the years.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah they did, because I mean, marijuana is not recreational.
Marijuana was not and I think still is not legal
in Denmark. So this is like flagrant open selling of
hash in particular, and because this is a black market,
the people who are willing to kind of step up
and you know, offer those services or those products are
(13:50):
criminal elements. So those gangs in particular, the how are
we going to say this, the BS Motorcycle Club.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, I mean everybody knows what that is. We don't
cuss on this show, but that was one of their names.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And then the world famous Hell's Angels.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I think you mean the h Double Hockey Stix Angel.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That's right, thank you. They those two gangs ended up
trying to take over Pusher Street and there was actually
a gang war from nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty six.
Between those two gangs, and a lot of it played
out on Pusher Street. Now, like you said, the people
who live there are pretty much peace loving, they're self governing,
(14:35):
they're just generally mellow people. And all of a sudden,
there's motorcycle gangs at a war in the middle of
your town. And I saw there was an article by
I think a guy in Vanity Fair of all places,
about this, and he said, if you want to imagine
Pusher Street, imagine a quaint, little small town with a
(15:00):
strip mall going right through the middle, down main Street,
with forty liquor stores on it. Yeah, that's essentially what
he said. This is like. So this just basically developed.
And remember, these people didn't like plan Pusher Street. It
just started to happen, and then it got out of hand,
certainly out of their hands because they're anarchists. They can't
call the cops because they don't believe in that kind
(15:21):
of stuff. They can't sick the government on these people.
They don't believe in that kind of stuff. So they
had to do whatever they could to kind of try
to keep this element out as much as possible, and
they really had a hard time with it for decades.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah. I mean one of the other rules that they
eventually brought in was that you can't wear gang colors.
I think by two thousand and four, supposedly or reportedly,
up to twenty five percent of Christiania was reliant on
the drug economy. And that same Vanity Fair article said
that Pusher Street had the biggest hash market on the
planet and said it basically had forty different stalls selling
(15:54):
forty different brands of hashish, and the cops in twenty
sixteen estimate that the drug trade had put on Pusher
Street was worth about one hundred million American dollars a
year or one billion kroner. So it was like that
way for decades and decades. There was violence that was
at least one killing. I think the cops in nineteen
(16:16):
eighty seven found a dismembered body under the floor of
one of the gang's hangouts, and there was just a
lot of push and pull over the years with the
police trying to rid that scene from there, and certainly
the people, you know, like most of the people on
the inside wanting it gone.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, I mean, there were like there were I think
the the Hell's Angels eventually overpowered the BS motorcycle club
to the point where they folded because they kept carrying
out broad daylight hits on the BS motorcycle club's leaders,
and one of those took place at Christiania. As recently
(16:55):
as twenty twenty three, there was a fatal stabbing, fatal shootings.
In twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two there was
a shooting that injured three people, one of whom was
a cop. So you can imagine, like if there's certain
liberal vanguards of Danish society there, like let them live,
(17:16):
let them stay. This is an experience, a social experiment.
The cops in Copenhagen hate Christiania and are just I
get the impression, pull their hair out over the idea
that this is just allowed to continue, especially when cops
start getting shot and other people get murdered in broad
daylight in this place.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, for sure. I mean they had in nineteen ninety two,
like an eighteen month campaign to get all the drugs
out of there that didn't work. At one point they
were patrolling twenty four to seven. There's in two thousand
and four they had built the cops had built a
Pusher Street replica at their training facility. So they could
literally train for like exactly how to handle that area.
(17:57):
And there was a song even the district Police department
wrote a song about the dealers that had the line
clear out Christiania, take the s down. They will never
never smoke a joint again. That's what happens when cops
write songs, by the.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Way, right. And they also in twenty twenty two alone,
they raided Pusher Street one hundred times. Yeah, and they
kept bouncing back. It kept bouncing back. I saw that
even though they didn't call the police. This was somebody
who was explaining it on Quora. I'm not quite sure
(18:33):
what there their bona fides are, Yeah, so take this
with a grain of salt, but they seem to not
be quite sensationalists. They said that at one point, the
residents of Christiania essentially baited a police rate is how
they put it. They I'm not quite sure, but they
did something that they knew would attract the police. They
knew it was coming, and so they warned everybody who
(18:55):
lived in Christiania about it. And they didn't warn any
of the dealers on Pusher Street to base use the
cops to get these guys out of Pusher Street. So
that's I guess one tactic you could possibly use if
you're not willing to call the cops. But they they
also themselves would go disassemble these stalls. They would as
a group stand up to the Hell's Angels in the
(19:15):
BS Motorcycle Club and push them out. But even if
the cops are doing it, if the residents of Christiania
were doing it, it did not matter. For decades, they
would come back and they would sell hash and make
money and essentially intimidate the people who live there.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That's right, And they even said, never mind, that's a
terrible joke. I'm not even going to say it. But
in twenty twenty four, they finally, finally, it was just
a couple of years ago, dug up Pusher Street. They
literally dug up and got rid of that street all
together and got everyone out of there, and they, I
think cobin Hagen announced plans to build a pub some
(19:52):
public housing on where Pusher Street used to be, so
you know, there's like local crafts and stuff being sold
on Push Now. It remains to be seen if the
drug trade is going to come back, but hopefully that
did the trick and it's out of there.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And one of the other things I saw. Actually two
other things that Christiani a residence did over the years
to keep drugs out as best they could. The first one,
I think came in the late seventies when heroin started
to make a real apparance, and they were like, you
know what, we don't want heroin here. We don't want
(20:28):
hard drugs. You want to drink, you want to smoke hash,
you want to smoke pot, whatever, that's fine, but we
as a group are going to say we don't want
heroin here. So they essentially forced out the heroin dealers
and they said, you heroin addicts, if you want to stay, stay,
but you have to quit heroin. You have to go
into treatment. Yeah, and get this. They said, we're going
(20:49):
to test your urine randomly to make sure that you're
staying clean, and if you're not, we're going to force
you out. And I was like, I looked into how
they did. Then apparently there was a resident who could
detect heroin and your urine with just one tiny sip
at any rate. They really did drug test people. That
(21:11):
was the first time they did it. The second time
they appealed to the public and they said help save Christiania.
Buy your hash somewhere else. So they were actually actively
trying to keep people from buying hash in Christiania, which
apparently it's supposedly not actually cool to do, but it's
such a tourist spot, and tourists just will go buy
hash whenever they can out in broad daylight. That it's
(21:35):
it was just thriving for decades.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, I mean, I think they said they get it
in the like peak vacation summertime. They get like as
many as ten thousand people touristing that area every day
for sure, so it's very busy area. But it seems
like they've eradicated the drugs at least for now. So
their relationship with the government over the years is that
has sort of been up and down, and we'll talk
about all that right after this.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
So, Chuck, you were saying that the government has had
a love hate or lenient not so lenient relationship with
Christiania over the years, right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
How well, I mean, you know, they came in and
took over a military base. They were building fences and
they were getting torn down and sort of like, yeah,
you can have a playground, and then okay, you can
live there, and you know, I think as it started
to build there was just some raised eyebrows, but they
weren't causing a lot of trouble, so they let them go.
(22:58):
And by nineteen seventy two, the govern it's official stance
was like, all right, this is a social experiment and
let's see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, so you think, oh, that's great, they're going to
leave us alone. Nope, the next year the government was saying, like,
we're not sure about this social experiment experiment thing. Everybody
needs to leave by April first, nineteen seventy six. And
the people of Christiania did not take that sitting down.
They sued the Danish government. They protested the court's rule
(23:26):
against Christiania over and over again. But the despite you know,
legally being able to go in and clear everybody out,
the Danish government just would never go that far. They
threatened to, they came up with plans, they came up
with compromises, but they never went so far as to
just go in and remove everybody.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, I mean they've they've threatened eviction and like had
official eviction decrees and then revoked. But yeah, like you said,
they I think it would be. It was so well
known by that point, it would be a really bad
look for the government to go in and you know,
rip like literal families out of there that were basically
(24:05):
doing pretty good. I mean, from what I saw, the
only kind of downside was the hash trade that went
on there for so long, and that was just in
one localized area.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, and that seems to be how the government and
the police in particular really kept the heat on the
residents of Christiania that, like you said, that seemed to
be the only real problem with it. I've seen. If
you remove that whole drug trade, the crime in Christiania
is very very low, so regardless because nobody could get
(24:36):
a handle on the drug trade. In nineteen eighty nine,
the government actually passed what they called the Christiania Act.
I said, you guys can stay, but you're going to
have to work with us a little more. Pub owners
are going to have to start getting liquor licenses. We're
gonna need to certify your kindergarten teachers stuff like that. Right, Like,
there had to be some sort of governmental intervention. Their
(25:00):
kids have to actually go to government schools. Outside of Christiania.
There's just more involvement that the government insisted on.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, a couple of years before that, in nineteen eighty seven,
they said, all right, the new plan is you can
stay here, but we're going to divide up this area
and the neighborhood is going to be rezoned into two areas.
The military ramparts where a lot of your homes are
is going to be a conservation zone and you're going
to have to move out eventually. And then the second
(25:31):
area is what we're going to call the urban zone,
and you can basically stay there. And then in a
couple of years they announced all the plans just to
make things a little more official.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Right, And it's sae that way for a couple decades,
and then two thousand and one the government's like, just
forget that, forget it again. We're going to evict you guys.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So finally in twenty eleven, the government in Denmark said
all right, you guys can keep doing your thing, but
you got to buy this land, like we got to
get some then out of it. And that was a
tough nut to crack for the residents there because first
of all, like they didn't have that kind of dough
(26:10):
and second of all, that was like not what they
were all about, Like, individual property ownership wasn't their jam,
and so a lot of them were turned off by
the whole idea of kind of owning that. But then
I think they saw the writing on the wall, which
is like, well, this is what allow us to stay
at least, So they raised the money. They didn't, you know,
go out and buy individual parcels of land. They set
(26:31):
up a foundation that would cover all of the land
that they needed, and they raised the dough. They raised
twelve and a half million kroner and that was enough
to buy about a quarter of that land and then
pay rent for the rest of it.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, I get this. They also took out bank loans,
which can't you see them like showing up with like
their hair kind of parted and in like styled as
best as they can, but they're still wearing like their
leather vest with the anarchy symbol painted on the back. Totally.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I mean that's the movie version.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yeah, right, So the way that they got around that
private ownership thing was they pulled everything together and they
bought it collectively. So Christiania itself owns the land that
these people live on. The people pay rent to the community.
They also pay essentially an hoa fee of something like
(27:21):
one hundred and seventy six kroner I think are dollars
worth a.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Month thirteen hundred and fifty kroner. Well, see, that's the
trade off is the rent is about four dollars and
sixty seven cents a month American, right, but the maintenance
fees are one hundred and ninety six a month. So
they're basically saying like, hey, you can live here for
almost nothing, but it still costs money to run this place,
(27:46):
and you're all going to pitch.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
In for that exactly right. So that's actually a pretty
good work around. If you're an anarchistic you need to
make a deal with the capitalist devil. That's about the
best you can hope for. So the government was like, well,
it's your land now, Okay, we can't do anything, but
that's about a quarter of the land. There's still a
bunch of land left. And if you don't buy this,
we're gonna build public housing. That seems to be the threat. Ironically, Yeah,
(28:10):
the government now uses over Christiania is we're going to
build housing that is open to the public and you're
not going to have any say about who moves in,
because over the years, in another great stroke of irony,
the people of Christiania have gotten extremely selective of who
(28:30):
moves in.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, I mean, you have to do an interview now
to move in. It used to be like they would
just accept anybody. But you know, they got more organized.
I think there are fourteen different neighborhood groups there now,
and you know, there's a lot of I think it
just got a little more complicated as time went on,
like there has to be consensus for changing even very
(28:52):
minor things like changing out the windows of a building.
I think the New York Times did an article on
it that said it was like an out of control
cond association. And you know, like I said, you have
to go through an interview process just to live there now.
So I think sort of the idyllic days have come
and gone. But from what I've read about just contemporary
(29:14):
articles now, it seems to still be kind of a
great thing for people who live there.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, for sure. Like there's a sewer system, like we said,
garbage collection has been there a long time. They have
recycling centers, they have the Gray Hall, there's cafes, beast shows,
there's just a lot there's like a it's a city.
It's like a little city that was self built and
also self governed. They also Chuck have their own currency,
(29:43):
the lune with a slash through it, the metal o
and which means the wage. It's apparently equal to about
fifty Danish kroner and it's a minted coin made of copper.
I could not find where they have it minted, but
they have minted currency in Christiania. There's a pot leaf
(30:06):
and a snail on one side.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
On the other side it says free town of Christiania
and live and let others live.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Well, that's pretty nice.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
But they have minted coins.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
How you just you can get a coin minted?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I can't. I have no idea where to go get
a coin minted, and I don't even know how to
begin to find out.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
We could get a coin minted. There's like podcasts and
people do like challenge coins and stuff all the time,
so it's a service you can have.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Well, are my eyes open now?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
You've never gotten a challenge coin from someone or I
don't even know.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
What that means.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Well, it's like not even I think there are other
names for them too. But you can get like a
coin made like Ben and Adam, I think for greatest
generation had coins made.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, it didn't give me one.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
You could give them to people. My brother in law
and the Marines, they got a coin minted for his
I was about to say graduation, his retirement, and so
he gave me one of those coins.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
So it's a thing that's awesome. Will you give me
a coin? Sure?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I'll just hop on over to coins r us and
input my what do you want to have? Momo on
one side and you me on the other? Perfect and
maybe like a like a palm tree and a Georgia beach.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Can you put them both in profile and make them
look like queens?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Well they already do. Okay, great, should be too hard.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
That's a great coin, man, Thank you. Let's see what else.
Oh I talked about how there are only a couple
of rules to start in the first one was violence.
The second one was no hard drugs. As the gang's
got more became more and more of a problem, you
couldn't wear gang colors. Yeah, no stealing, no bulletproof vest.
(31:51):
That's actually a pretty grim rule.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, you get shot, you're gonna die, exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Take it like a man. And guns and knives. That
was all part of one rule and no running, No running,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Why they said that running causes chaos or panic or something.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, right, yeah, And they were saying that that usually
indicates that it's a police raid, and so other people
are going to start running too, So don't run, just walk.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, lifeguard rules exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
So the current state of Christiani is exactly the same.
They managed to get Pusher Street closed down, or at
least they got the pushers out of Pusher Street. That
public housing is still on the offing. I think it's
supposed to start in twenty twenty nine, and the neighborhood's
very divided about it. Some people are like, no, we
(32:40):
want to know who's moving in here. We want to
vet who moves in here. Yeah, and we don't want,
you know, three hundred public houses built in the middle.
I think they were going to build it in the middle,
like right down Pusher Street to kind of make it
so Pusher Street never comes back. The other faction, I guess,
is like, no, this is actually great because we need
(33:01):
affordable housing. Copenhangen is very very expensive still, so this
is going to bring like younger people and artists and
allow people to kind of move in and we need
that kind of.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
New blood too, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So I talked about different factions. Right, There's this author
who I think back in nineteen eighty one, he was
a Christiania resident but also a scholar, and he wrote
a book Burgs Madsen is how I'm going to say
his name, and he essentially divided the population of Christiania
(33:35):
into three socioeconomic or essentially three cultural strata. One was
the top were the activists, who he calls the holy ones.
The bottom stratum was the he called them trash, and
then the middle stratum was the liberalists. And he essentially
said that the liberalists came from the middle class outside
(33:59):
of christian moved to Christiania. And I get the impression
where like the least radical, the least anarchistic, and he
essentially asserts all the way back in nineteen eighty one,
he points to the liberalists as the ones who led
to this kind of normalizing, compromising of Christiania that makes
(34:21):
it a little less radical than it originally was.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I thought you were going to say hash users, hash makers,
hash dealers, than hash haters.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And the hash itself it has rights in Christiania.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Oh, that's right. That's a group into itself.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
So yeah, that's the future of Christiania. You got anything else, I.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Got nothing else. It's on my list to visit if
I ever get over that way.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Oh. I can't wait to go to Copenhagen someday. I
want to just go to all of Scandinavia.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, Oslo, Oslo, Stockholm. Everything I've heard is just great.
It's just like if like nice people to just riding
their bikes everywhere, then it's for you.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, for sure. I think monical magazine called Copenhagen the
World's most livable city.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
All right, we'll go there someday, Chuck. All right, and
I need to go figure out some other Scandinavian cities
to visit too, so I can rattle them off. That's right,
Chuck said, that's right. So it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
This is from Troy. Hey, guys, been enjoying the show
for a few years, and I saw the Camp David
episode and I had to listen right away because my
dad was a captain in the Marines and stationed at
Camp David from nineteen seventy one to nineteen seventy three.
We lived down the hill from the camp in military housing,
and when the President Nixon at the time was not there,
we were generally able to use the facilities on the camp.
(35:48):
Everyone that was allowed on the camp or in the
camp had their profile with picture in the guard post
and you could drive right up to the gate. At
the time, I was fied to seven years old and
actually learned to swim in that figure eight pool. There's
a picture out there of Gerald Ford and his dog
by the pool at the exact spot I remember just
going for it and jumping in. My dad passed away
(36:10):
in twenty nineteen, and while going through his stuff I
found his short autobiography. I was really surprised at how
candidly he described some of this, because he never really
talked about it that much. Below is an excerpt of
his memories there, and he included a really nice page
from his dad that I read and it was awesome.
I still have some memorabilia from the time there as well,
(36:31):
including Camp David playing cards and a Russian clock given
by some dignitaries that visited.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Keep up the great work, and that is from Troy Buscher.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Well, thanks a lot, Troy. That's a great story. And
if you want to be like Troy and tell us
a personal story, especially a sweet one about your dad
that has to do with one of our episodes we
want to hear from you, send it off to Stuff
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Stuff you Should Know a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're going on over
to foggy Copenhagen town. Yeah, for this episode of Stuff
you should know.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
That's right, because we were talking about a little sort
of village neighborhood, anarchist commune in Copenhagen, Denmark called Freetown Christiania,
which was founded in nineteen seventy one, and it has
a pretty interesting story. Well, he continues to.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
You had me an anarchist squatter commune. Yeah, so it is.
I think there's something like eight hundred nine hundred residents there,
depending on who you ask. And they just basically showed up.
They set up shop in this former military base and
they said we're not leaving. This is a free, free territory.
(01:02):
And in fact, when you walk into Christiania, I just
want to say, Christiana is so bad.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I know me too.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That extra eye just throws me off. But it doesn't
matter because I'm foreign to this. I'm foreign to the
people of Denmark, so I will say I will just
deal with it, right, that's right. At any rate. When
you walk into Christiania, there's a sign that says you
are now leaving the European Union.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, pretty cool. So the backstory here is in the
seventeenth century, that's the sixteen hundreds, by the way, and
Copenhagen they built a big fortress and some ramparts there too,
you know, as protection obviously, because that's what ramparts are.
And in the eighteen thirties they built in our artillery
barracks there. They grew over the course of the nineteenth century,
(01:48):
but then in the nineteen hundreds Denmark was like, you
know what, no one's gonna come after us. We're Denmark.
Everyone pretty much likes this, so we don't need this
kind of presence here. And so in nineteen sixteen the
southern part of the base was closed and actually like
converted by the country into a park. Then in nineteen
(02:08):
sixty one parts of the ramparts on the northern end
were transferred to the public, and then about six years later,
between sixty seven and seventy one, they finally the military
got out of it all together, and there was a
completely abandoned military base there by nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, so I mean and it's pretty decent size. Part
of it's a park, so it's alluring. It's in the
middle of essentially downtown Copenhagen, so it's kind of like
attractive to people. You know, it's not out in the
middle of nowhere. It's like, right there, let's do something
with it. And there is a neighborhood right next to
(02:45):
it called Christian Christian's Hoven Christians Haven if you anglicize it,
and they apparently the parents there kept tearing down the
security fences to allow their children to go in and
play in this abandoned military barracks.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
You know, I actually looked up the V in Denmark
and how you treated that thing?
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Did I? Butcher?
Speaker 1 (03:10):
It?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Is that how I went?
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Well, I don't know, because I bet you're probably right,
But what the internet said was that the V. And
I'm sure someone can write in and let us know
that the V is pronounced like a V when it's
in the front of a word, but is treated as
a W when it's in the middle or rear of
a word.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Okay, so let me try this again.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Christian's holland maybe that's how they pronounced it. I don't know.
I'm actually I'm genuinely curious because that's always thrown me.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Chris John's hollowin. That's what I'm going.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
With, all right, that's what I'm going with too.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Okay, Well, anyway, it's a neighborhood and they tore down
the fence, and apparently the local authorities I think the
military at first, and then the government kept building the fence.
They're like, this is to keep you out. Stop tearing
it down. And the parents in the neighborhood said never,
and they kept tearing it down. Finally, the government just
gave up and just left it to them to let
their children play.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, so it became a kid's playground. In October of
nineteen seventy one, there's a guy named Jacob. Here's another bee.
I'm gonna say, lugwigs and sure if the Internet is correct,
and he is the or was then the editor of
a Actually it turns out it's the most popular kind
of counterculture rag in Denmark called the hod Blad.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
It means new leaf.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Oh I saw it, the main paper.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Oh, the main leaf. That's what I saw.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Okay. I like new leaf too, because you can turn
those over and good things happen.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That's what I thought.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
So he was the editor of that thing. He needed
some you know, some content to put in there. One week,
and so he and some of his buddies went and
did you know, kind of a fun little hey, we're
going to take over this old barracks. And so they
did an article. They took pictures of them, like having
picnics and having and waving around air rifles and you know,
you'll have to remember this is just after the military
(05:06):
had left it, so it's very much like an anti
war sort of little fun piece they were doing. And
in the article he said civilians have taken over the
Forbidden City, except he said it in the language there.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yeah. And he also in the article that he wrote
to accompany it, he said, hey, there's a bunch of
different things we could do with this old military base.
But there's a housing crisis right now. The prices of
apartments and rents and all that are really really high.
So young people are getting forced out of the city
or can't move to the city. Let's turn this into
(05:42):
affordable housing. And he said, and by affordable housing, I
mean just free, come build your house here. Let's turn
this into an anarchist compound. And they I think the
local Colorful community answered the call pretty much immediately.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, I mean, you put out a call for anarchist commune,
free rent, and doesn't matter where you are in the world,
you're going to get some people knock out on your
door pretty quickly with their petuli and their hackey sacks.
And they were all in, certainly in Denmark. As far
as the name Christiania, there's a bunch of stories that
could have been named after the king who commissioned the barracks,
(06:20):
or maybe a twist on that neighborhood that you talked about,
the Christian showing, or maybe Oslo pre nineteen twenty five.
So no one can quite pinpoint exactly why it was
named Christiania, but that is what it was so dubbed.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Right, and that's what it's still dubbed today because it
is probably the most successful anarchist squat in history.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
It's been around for seventy years or no, fifty years.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
Hey, buddy, I was born in seventy one.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Sorry. Yeah, it's been around as long as Chuck and
Chuck's been around, so it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah, it's fifty five years old. Just to say it
like you said it was. I don't know if you
said it, but they had a pretty good start there
because you know, it was just abandoned by the military
in nineteen seventy one, so it's not like it was
falling apart or anything like that. It wasn't like fancy,
but the buildings were all pretty great, and they had
electricity and running water. And as they got going, it
(07:20):
wasn't like, hey, let's get together and be a community.
It was just like, hey, you can come here and
do whatever you want. But one thing I love about
people is when you get enough people together for a
period of time, they don't like too much chaos, and
they all tend to come together. I feel like, maybe
it doesn't always work out, but initially I feel like
(07:42):
they all seemed to come together and say like, hey,
let's get like organized a little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Yeah. It's very hobsy in yeah. And the point of
that is that this group that started out as an
anarchist commune and not even a commune, I guess, just
a bunch of anarchist squatters, formed an anarchist commune. They
like you said, they came together. They started making rules
because even anarchists love rules.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
The first rule was no violence, which is a pretty
good first rule, and that was the only rule for
quite quite a long time actually, And the way that
these anarchist squatters who lived in Christiania enforced the rules
was through like social pressure, exclusion, shunning. They they policed themselves, right,
(08:30):
so if you if you did commit violentce, you would
be forced out of this neighborhood one way or another.
And that was essentially one of the first things they
came together to do was to kind of self police.
And then the second thing they came together to do
was to take care of the trash. Yeah, because there
are two things that people do in any situation, especially
(08:51):
when there are no rules. They'll fight and they'll generate
garbage and just leave it places.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Yeah, so they said, hey, you know, that was literally
like the first thing they did is they formed a team,
a garbage team to deal with the waste. Businesses started
to open up a little bit, and it didn't take long.
Within a few years kind of like by the mid seventies,
it was it's, you know, own little society in there.
They had communal bass that they built, they had cafes,
they had shop collectives, they had a Kindergarten. They had
(09:22):
a theater, a few theaters, I think, but the largest
is the Gray Hall, which is still there today. I
think I looked up the capacity. It looks like it.
See it's about fifteen hundred people.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Oh wow.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
And they've had some like Bob Dylan played there. Metallica
and Rage Against the Machine both played there, so.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Did no effects Morrissey Prodigy. Did Morrissey show up though
probably not he was scheduled. Yeah, and I saw Steve
Ignorant from Crass played there too. Who's that? I don't
know that Crass, the punk band Crass, Yes you have.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
I have never heard of them, and.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I know you listened to everything I say.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
All right, So Christiana was obviously I think they had
their their motto at Versus Black Sheep from all Classes Unite.
And they attracted a lot of artists, obviously early on
and still the place is kind of teeming with art
if you you can just look up pictures or you
can go on YouTube, and there are quite a few
YouTube videos of people just doing like a little walking
(10:23):
tour of Freetown, Christiania, and it's awesome. It looks like,
you know, there's murals everywhere. They started hosting plays and
musicals at the Gray Hall over the years, and it's
just sort of a lovely place if you're into art,
you know, any kind of visual or musical art.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Yeah, I think I said there were about eight hundred
and nine hundred residents. I saw about one hundred and
fifty of those are kids, and there are children who
are raised. Like you said, they've established kindergartens there. And
there's a guy named Lucas Forshammer. He's the lead singer
of a group, a band called Lucas Graham and they
(11:04):
sing in English. I think they're big ish from what
I saw, it's kind of pop country almost. He was
born and raised in Christiania, and I was reading a
Rolling Stone article with him, and it was really interesting
him because he seems very mellow and nice and open.
But one of his quotes was that he learned how
to mix a Molotov cocktail before he learned how to
(11:25):
mix a Long Island iced tea.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Wow, which is interesting because they generally, I mean, we'll
talk about think when things got a little violent, but
they're a peaceful people.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
They are, but they also, you know, the cops show
up whenever they want and this is like a group
of anarchist squatters and they don't really like police presences,
and yeah, yeah, so it's a there's this real undercurrent
under this whole story, because the there's a it's a
generally positive story, but you also can't forget we're talking
about anarchists squatting in the middle of a modern city
(11:57):
and being pressured from outside and pushing back on that
pressure in ways that you know you can't forget.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
Yeah, for sure. So I think we sort of teased
a bit of a dark side. And why don't we
take a break and we'll talk about another type of
person who moved to Christiania right after this. All right,
(12:40):
So we mentioned that lots of like cool, free spirited
artists moved to Christiania and put on plays and musicals
and painted walls and did all kinds of fun stuff
open shops and cafes. But also that became the what
was known as the green Light District where even though
marijuana was illegal and Denmark, they would sell drugs there,
mainly pot, and it was called Pusher Street. They sold
(13:02):
the street where they sold the drugs was ended up
being called Pusher Street. It was generally like I said,
selling weed and hash not the biggest deal. But anytime
you have that kind of thing, you know somebody will
come in wanting heroin or acid or you know, whatever
you name a drug, and harder drugs did kind of
(13:23):
come in and it got pretty out of hand and
they had a lot of problems with the cops and
eventually gangs over the years.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Yeah they did, because I mean, marijuana is not recreational.
Marijuana was not and I think still is not legal
in Denmark. So this is like flagrant open selling of
hash in particular, and because this is a black market,
the people who are willing to kind of step up
and you know, offer those services or those products are
(13:50):
criminal elements. So those gangs in particular, the how are
we going to say this, the BS Motorcycle Club.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, I mean everybody knows what that is. We don't
cuss on this show, but that was one of their names.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
And then the world famous Hell's Angels.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
I think you mean the h Double Hockey Stix Angel.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
That's right, thank you. They those two gangs ended up
trying to take over Pusher Street and there was actually
a gang war from nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty six.
Between those two gangs, and a lot of it played
out on Pusher Street. Now, like you said, the people
who live there are pretty much peace loving, they're self governing,
(14:35):
they're just generally mellow people. And all of a sudden,
there's motorcycle gangs at a war in the middle of
your town. And I saw there was an article by
I think a guy in Vanity Fair of all places,
about this, and he said, if you want to imagine
Pusher Street, imagine a quaint, little small town with a
(15:00):
strip mall going right through the middle, down main Street,
with forty liquor stores on it. Yeah, that's essentially what
he said. This is like. So this just basically developed.
And remember, these people didn't like plan Pusher Street. It
just started to happen, and then it got out of hand,
certainly out of their hands because they're anarchists. They can't
call the cops because they don't believe in that kind
(15:21):
of stuff. They can't sick the government on these people.
They don't believe in that kind of stuff. So they
had to do whatever they could to kind of try
to keep this element out as much as possible, and
they really had a hard time with it for decades.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Yeah. I mean one of the other rules that they
eventually brought in was that you can't wear gang colors.
I think by two thousand and four, supposedly or reportedly,
up to twenty five percent of Christiania was reliant on
the drug economy. And that same Vanity Fair article said
that Pusher Street had the biggest hash market on the
planet and said it basically had forty different stalls selling
(15:54):
forty different brands of hashish, and the cops in twenty
sixteen estimate that the drug trade had put on Pusher
Street was worth about one hundred million American dollars a
year or one billion kroner. So it was like that
way for decades and decades. There was violence that was
at least one killing. I think the cops in nineteen
(16:16):
eighty seven found a dismembered body under the floor of
one of the gang's hangouts, and there was just a
lot of push and pull over the years with the
police trying to rid that scene from there, and certainly
the people, you know, like most of the people on
the inside wanting it gone.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah, I mean, there were like there were I think
the the Hell's Angels eventually overpowered the BS motorcycle club
to the point where they folded because they kept carrying
out broad daylight hits on the BS motorcycle club's leaders,
and one of those took place at Christiania. As recently
(16:55):
as twenty twenty three, there was a fatal stabbing, fatal shootings.
In twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two there was
a shooting that injured three people, one of whom was
a cop. So you can imagine, like if there's certain
liberal vanguards of Danish society there, like let them live,
(17:16):
let them stay. This is an experience, a social experiment.
The cops in Copenhagen hate Christiania and are just I
get the impression, pull their hair out over the idea
that this is just allowed to continue, especially when cops
start getting shot and other people get murdered in broad
daylight in this place.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Yeah, for sure. I mean they had in nineteen ninety two,
like an eighteen month campaign to get all the drugs
out of there that didn't work. At one point they
were patrolling twenty four to seven. There's in two thousand
and four they had built the cops had built a
Pusher Street replica at their training facility. So they could
literally train for like exactly how to handle that area.
(17:57):
And there was a song even the district Police department
wrote a song about the dealers that had the line
clear out Christiania, take the s down. They will never
never smoke a joint again. That's what happens when cops
write songs, by the.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Way, right. And they also in twenty twenty two alone,
they raided Pusher Street one hundred times. Yeah, and they
kept bouncing back. It kept bouncing back. I saw that
even though they didn't call the police. This was somebody
who was explaining it on Quora. I'm not quite sure
(18:33):
what there their bona fides are, Yeah, so take this
with a grain of salt, but they seem to not
be quite sensationalists. They said that at one point, the
residents of Christiania essentially baited a police rate is how
they put it. They I'm not quite sure, but they
did something that they knew would attract the police. They
knew it was coming, and so they warned everybody who
(18:55):
lived in Christiania about it. And they didn't warn any
of the dealers on Pusher Street to base use the
cops to get these guys out of Pusher Street. So
that's I guess one tactic you could possibly use if
you're not willing to call the cops. But they they
also themselves would go disassemble these stalls. They would as
a group stand up to the Hell's Angels in the
(19:15):
BS Motorcycle Club and push them out. But even if
the cops are doing it, if the residents of Christiania
were doing it, it did not matter. For decades, they
would come back and they would sell hash and make
money and essentially intimidate the people who live there.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
That's right, And they even said, never mind, that's a
terrible joke. I'm not even going to say it. But
in twenty twenty four, they finally, finally, it was just
a couple of years ago, dug up Pusher Street. They
literally dug up and got rid of that street all
together and got everyone out of there, and they, I
think cobin Hagen announced plans to build a pub some
(19:52):
public housing on where Pusher Street used to be, so
you know, there's like local crafts and stuff being sold
on Push Now. It remains to be seen if the
drug trade is going to come back, but hopefully that
did the trick and it's out of there.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
And one of the other things I saw. Actually two
other things that Christiani a residence did over the years
to keep drugs out as best they could. The first one,
I think came in the late seventies when heroin started
to make a real apparance, and they were like, you
know what, we don't want heroin here. We don't want
(20:28):
hard drugs. You want to drink, you want to smoke hash,
you want to smoke pot, whatever, that's fine, but we
as a group are going to say we don't want
heroin here. So they essentially forced out the heroin dealers
and they said, you heroin addicts, if you want to stay, stay,
but you have to quit heroin. You have to go
into treatment. Yeah, and get this. They said, we're going
(20:49):
to test your urine randomly to make sure that you're
staying clean, and if you're not, we're going to force
you out. And I was like, I looked into how
they did. Then apparently there was a resident who could
detect heroin and your urine with just one tiny sip
at any rate. They really did drug test people. That
(21:11):
was the first time they did it. The second time
they appealed to the public and they said help save Christiania.
Buy your hash somewhere else. So they were actually actively
trying to keep people from buying hash in Christiania, which
apparently it's supposedly not actually cool to do, but it's
such a tourist spot, and tourists just will go buy
hash whenever they can out in broad daylight. That it's
(21:35):
it was just thriving for decades.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah, I mean, I think they said they get it
in the like peak vacation summertime. They get like as
many as ten thousand people touristing that area every day
for sure, so it's very busy area. But it seems
like they've eradicated the drugs at least for now. So
their relationship with the government over the years is that
has sort of been up and down, and we'll talk
about all that right after this.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
So, Chuck, you were saying that the government has had
a love hate or lenient not so lenient relationship with
Christiania over the years, right, that's right.
Speaker 1 (22:36):
How well, I mean, you know, they came in and
took over a military base. They were building fences and
they were getting torn down and sort of like, yeah,
you can have a playground, and then okay, you can
live there, and you know, I think as it started
to build there was just some raised eyebrows, but they
weren't causing a lot of trouble, so they let them go.
(22:58):
And by nineteen seventy two, the govern it's official stance
was like, all right, this is a social experiment and
let's see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Right, so you think, oh, that's great, they're going to
leave us alone. Nope, the next year the government was saying, like,
we're not sure about this social experiment experiment thing. Everybody
needs to leave by April first, nineteen seventy six. And
the people of Christiania did not take that sitting down.
They sued the Danish government. They protested the court's rule
(23:26):
against Christiania over and over again. But the despite you know,
legally being able to go in and clear everybody out,
the Danish government just would never go that far. They
threatened to, they came up with plans, they came up
with compromises, but they never went so far as to
just go in and remove everybody.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Yeah, I mean they've they've threatened eviction and like had
official eviction decrees and then revoked. But yeah, like you said,
they I think it would be. It was so well
known by that point, it would be a really bad
look for the government to go in and you know,
rip like literal families out of there that were basically
(24:05):
doing pretty good. I mean, from what I saw, the
only kind of downside was the hash trade that went
on there for so long, and that was just in
one localized area.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, and that seems to be how the government and
the police in particular really kept the heat on the
residents of Christiania that, like you said, that seemed to
be the only real problem with it. I've seen. If
you remove that whole drug trade, the crime in Christiania
is very very low, so regardless because nobody could get
(24:36):
a handle on the drug trade. In nineteen eighty nine,
the government actually passed what they called the Christiania Act.
I said, you guys can stay, but you're going to
have to work with us a little more. Pub owners
are going to have to start getting liquor licenses. We're
gonna need to certify your kindergarten teachers stuff like that. Right, Like,
there had to be some sort of governmental intervention. Their
(25:00):
kids have to actually go to government schools. Outside of Christiania.
There's just more involvement that the government insisted on.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
Yeah, a couple of years before that, in nineteen eighty seven,
they said, all right, the new plan is you can
stay here, but we're going to divide up this area
and the neighborhood is going to be rezoned into two areas.
The military ramparts where a lot of your homes are
is going to be a conservation zone and you're going
to have to move out eventually. And then the second
(25:31):
area is what we're going to call the urban zone,
and you can basically stay there. And then in a
couple of years they announced all the plans just to
make things a little more official.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
Right, And it's sae that way for a couple decades,
and then two thousand and one the government's like, just
forget that, forget it again. We're going to evict you guys.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
So finally in twenty eleven, the government in Denmark said
all right, you guys can keep doing your thing, but
you got to buy this land, like we got to
get some then out of it. And that was a
tough nut to crack for the residents there because first
of all, like they didn't have that kind of dough
(26:10):
and second of all, that was like not what they
were all about, Like, individual property ownership wasn't their jam,
and so a lot of them were turned off by
the whole idea of kind of owning that. But then
I think they saw the writing on the wall, which
is like, well, this is what allow us to stay
at least, So they raised the money. They didn't, you know,
go out and buy individual parcels of land. They set
(26:31):
up a foundation that would cover all of the land
that they needed, and they raised the dough. They raised
twelve and a half million kroner and that was enough
to buy about a quarter of that land and then
pay rent for the rest of it.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Yeah, I get this. They also took out bank loans,
which can't you see them like showing up with like
their hair kind of parted and in like styled as
best as they can, but they're still wearing like their
leather vest with the anarchy symbol painted on the back. Totally.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I mean that's the movie version.
Speaker 2 (26:59):
Yeah, right, So the way that they got around that
private ownership thing was they pulled everything together and they
bought it collectively. So Christiania itself owns the land that
these people live on. The people pay rent to the community.
They also pay essentially an hoa fee of something like
(27:21):
one hundred and seventy six kroner I think are dollars
worth a.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Month thirteen hundred and fifty kroner. Well, see, that's the
trade off is the rent is about four dollars and
sixty seven cents a month American, right, but the maintenance
fees are one hundred and ninety six a month. So
they're basically saying like, hey, you can live here for
almost nothing, but it still costs money to run this place,
(27:46):
and you're all going to pitch.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
In for that exactly right. So that's actually a pretty
good work around. If you're an anarchistic you need to
make a deal with the capitalist devil. That's about the
best you can hope for. So the government was like, well,
it's your land now, Okay, we can't do anything, but
that's about a quarter of the land. There's still a
bunch of land left. And if you don't buy this,
we're gonna build public housing. That seems to be the threat. Ironically, Yeah,
(28:10):
the government now uses over Christiania is we're going to
build housing that is open to the public and you're
not going to have any say about who moves in,
because over the years, in another great stroke of irony,
the people of Christiania have gotten extremely selective of who
(28:30):
moves in.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Yeah, I mean, you have to do an interview now
to move in. It used to be like they would
just accept anybody. But you know, they got more organized.
I think there are fourteen different neighborhood groups there now,
and you know, there's a lot of I think it
just got a little more complicated as time went on,
like there has to be consensus for changing even very
(28:52):
minor things like changing out the windows of a building.
I think the New York Times did an article on
it that said it was like an out of control
cond association. And you know, like I said, you have
to go through an interview process just to live there now.
So I think sort of the idyllic days have come
and gone. But from what I've read about just contemporary
(29:14):
articles now, it seems to still be kind of a
great thing for people who live there.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Yeah, for sure. Like there's a sewer system, like we said,
garbage collection has been there a long time. They have
recycling centers, they have the Gray Hall, there's cafes, beast shows,
there's just a lot there's like a it's a city.
It's like a little city that was self built and
also self governed. They also Chuck have their own currency,
(29:43):
the lune with a slash through it, the metal o
and which means the wage. It's apparently equal to about
fifty Danish kroner and it's a minted coin made of copper.
I could not find where they have it minted, but
they have minted currency in Christiania. There's a pot leaf
(30:06):
and a snail on one side.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
On the other side it says free town of Christiania
and live and let others live.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Well, that's pretty nice.
Speaker 2 (30:16):
But they have minted coins.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
How you just you can get a coin minted?
Speaker 2 (30:22):
I can't. I have no idea where to go get
a coin minted, and I don't even know how to
begin to find out.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
We could get a coin minted. There's like podcasts and
people do like challenge coins and stuff all the time,
so it's a service you can have.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Well, are my eyes open now?
Speaker 1 (30:38):
You've never gotten a challenge coin from someone or I
don't even know.
Speaker 2 (30:41):
What that means.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Well, it's like not even I think there are other
names for them too. But you can get like a
coin made like Ben and Adam, I think for greatest
generation had coins made.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, it didn't give me one.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
You could give them to people. My brother in law
and the Marines, they got a coin minted for his
I was about to say graduation, his retirement, and so
he gave me one of those coins.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
So it's a thing that's awesome. Will you give me
a coin? Sure?
Speaker 1 (31:10):
I'll just hop on over to coins r us and
input my what do you want to have? Momo on
one side and you me on the other? Perfect and
maybe like a like a palm tree and a Georgia beach.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
Can you put them both in profile and make them
look like queens?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Well they already do. Okay, great, should be too hard.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
That's a great coin, man, Thank you. Let's see what else.
Oh I talked about how there are only a couple
of rules to start in the first one was violence.
The second one was no hard drugs. As the gang's
got more became more and more of a problem, you
couldn't wear gang colors. Yeah, no stealing, no bulletproof vest.
(31:51):
That's actually a pretty grim rule.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, you get shot, you're gonna die, exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Take it like a man. And guns and knives. That
was all part of one rule and no running, No running,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Why they said that running causes chaos or panic or something.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Yeah, right, yeah, And they were saying that that usually
indicates that it's a police raid, and so other people
are going to start running too, So don't run, just walk.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Yeah, lifeguard rules exactly.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
So the current state of Christiani is exactly the same.
They managed to get Pusher Street closed down, or at
least they got the pushers out of Pusher Street. That
public housing is still on the offing. I think it's
supposed to start in twenty twenty nine, and the neighborhood's
very divided about it. Some people are like, no, we
(32:40):
want to know who's moving in here. We want to
vet who moves in here. Yeah, and we don't want,
you know, three hundred public houses built in the middle.
I think they were going to build it in the middle,
like right down Pusher Street to kind of make it
so Pusher Street never comes back. The other faction, I guess,
is like, no, this is actually great because we need
(33:01):
affordable housing. Copenhangen is very very expensive still, so this
is going to bring like younger people and artists and
allow people to kind of move in and we need
that kind of.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
New blood too, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
So I talked about different factions. Right, There's this author
who I think back in nineteen eighty one, he was
a Christiania resident but also a scholar, and he wrote
a book Burgs Madsen is how I'm going to say
his name, and he essentially divided the population of Christiania
(33:35):
into three socioeconomic or essentially three cultural strata. One was
the top were the activists, who he calls the holy ones.
The bottom stratum was the he called them trash, and
then the middle stratum was the liberalists. And he essentially
said that the liberalists came from the middle class outside
(33:59):
of christian moved to Christiania. And I get the impression
where like the least radical, the least anarchistic, and he
essentially asserts all the way back in nineteen eighty one,
he points to the liberalists as the ones who led
to this kind of normalizing, compromising of Christiania that makes
(34:21):
it a little less radical than it originally was.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
I thought you were going to say hash users, hash makers,
hash dealers, than hash haters.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
And the hash itself it has rights in Christiania.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
Oh, that's right. That's a group into itself.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
So yeah, that's the future of Christiania. You got anything else, I.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Got nothing else. It's on my list to visit if
I ever get over that way.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Oh. I can't wait to go to Copenhagen someday. I
want to just go to all of Scandinavia.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, Oslo, Oslo, Stockholm. Everything I've heard is just great.
It's just like if like nice people to just riding
their bikes everywhere, then it's for you.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Yeah, for sure. I think monical magazine called Copenhagen the
World's most livable city.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
Nice.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
All right, we'll go there someday, Chuck. All right, and
I need to go figure out some other Scandinavian cities
to visit too, so I can rattle them off. That's right,
Chuck said, that's right. So it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
This is from Troy. Hey, guys, been enjoying the show
for a few years, and I saw the Camp David
episode and I had to listen right away because my
dad was a captain in the Marines and stationed at
Camp David from nineteen seventy one to nineteen seventy three.
We lived down the hill from the camp in military housing,
and when the President Nixon at the time was not there,
we were generally able to use the facilities on the camp.
(35:48):
Everyone that was allowed on the camp or in the
camp had their profile with picture in the guard post
and you could drive right up to the gate. At
the time, I was fied to seven years old and
actually learned to swim in that figure eight pool. There's
a picture out there of Gerald Ford and his dog
by the pool at the exact spot I remember just
going for it and jumping in. My dad passed away
(36:10):
in twenty nineteen, and while going through his stuff I
found his short autobiography. I was really surprised at how
candidly he described some of this, because he never really
talked about it that much. Below is an excerpt of
his memories there, and he included a really nice page
from his dad that I read and it was awesome.
I still have some memorabilia from the time there as well,
(36:31):
including Camp David playing cards and a Russian clock given
by some dignitaries that visited.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (36:38):
Keep up the great work, and that is from Troy Buscher.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Well, thanks a lot, Troy. That's a great story. And
if you want to be like Troy and tell us
a personal story, especially a sweet one about your dad
that has to do with one of our episodes we
want to hear from you, send it off to Stuff
podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
Stuff you Should Know a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts myheart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Chuck Bryant
Josh Clark
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