Flogsta: Life in a Swedish Ghetto

Flogsta (aka Party Central) is one of the major student housing blocks within Uppsala. Originally built in the 1970s, Flogsta is managed by Heimstaden which was at one point voted the worst landlord in Sweden which should give you some idea why the area might be referred to as Uppsala’s ghetto. Carefree students combined with Sweden’s worst landlords might sound like an disaster waiting to happen, but this disaster started happening a long time ago and is showing no signs of going away so at least now you can see what you’re in for.

“Flogsta is by far the most popular option for exchange students. But it’s also known as Uppsala’s ghetto since it’s so run down”

Despite it’s reputation as being a rather unpleasant place to live, Flogsta is actually one of the most popular accommodation options for exchange students which is no doubt due to its reputation as being a hub of social activity. If one was to live in Flogsta, one would find themselves with a rather comfortable sized room with their own bathroom, the latter does make life much more pleasant.  There is ample space for any exchange student who will only receive the basics of a shelf, a desk, a bed, some lamps and some side tables. But this is more than enough to tide you over for one semester. You have to share a kitchen with the others in the corridor which usually consists of about 12 people. The kitchens are pretty well stocked and you can make most dishes in there. Being a student area, the kitchens can get pretty filthy although the cleanliness of the kitchens and common rooms varies considerably between the different corridors in Flogsta.

My Desk. I got a simple one, some people get a much bigger one but this is preferable in my opinion

View from the Corner

The Bathroom you will get (Yes the shower is attached to the faucet, it’s not as bad as it looks)

My bed. Fancy colours are useful for staving off depression in the winter

As exchange students, many of you were probably hoping to meet and live with people from over the world. Maybe you were hoping to get free accomodation and travel advice from them when you went to visit their home towns, I know I was. Unfortunately you might be a little surprised to realise that there is not as much diversity in the corridors as you might have thought. Many of the students from the same country are grouped together in the same building, a policy I don’t really understand. For example our corridor consists of 5 Australians and 6 Swedes so certainly not the best example of global diversity. Despite this minor setback, there are plenty of people from other parts of the world in other buildings so finding them is certainly not impossible.

Our very un-diverse corridor. Pretty much just Aussies and Swedes.

“You might be a little surprised to discover there’s not as much diversity in the corridors as you may have expected”

Don’t leave your door unlocked when you go on holiday or this might happen

It would be irresponsible to talk about Flogsta without mentioning the Flogsta scream. For those of you who have not heard, there is a tradition here in Flogsta where every night at 10pm, people scream from the balconies. Yes, it is a real thing and you will hear it every night although some nights more than others, particularly Friday nights which prove to be quite lively. There is some debate about the origins of the Flogsta scream. Some say that it was to commemorate a student who committed suicide many years ago although the more common explanation is that it was started by a bunch of students who got extremely nervous about an upcoming exam. Regardless of where the scream came from, it has become an integral part of Flogsta life serving an important indicator of when 10pm has arrived. I like to think of it as like a cuckoo clock that only works at 10pm.

Yes the Flogsta Scream is a real thing and yes you will hear it every night

Living on the outside edge of Flogsta in building 5 on the top floor is a real blessing in many ways. Here we get are the further away from the noise in Flogsta while being closest to the ICA and the bus stop. We also have more privacy since you can’t really see into our windows from the outside. However, one of the best things is view, we do get the most incredible sunsets up here. So if you do decide to come live in Flogsta, just hope you can get up here in 5-7. Once you get over the way it looks, Flogsta is actually a pretty fun place to live as there are a lot of social activities going on all the time. Keep in mind though, Flogsta is a bit out of the city centre compared to some of the other students accommodations, but you can easily catch a bus (Either a 2 or a 5) which come basically all the time so getting into town is not that difficult.

You might find some weird unsolicited mail as well

Each of the buildings in Flogsta has a sauna on the roof. Although if you were thinking of spending your free hours in there you might have to reconsider as Heimstaden just announced they are cutting off access to roofs and saunas in all Flogsta buildings. Apparently this decision was made after a certain group of partygoers decided to throw furniture of the roof of our building. Seeing as there is a children’s day care centre on the bottom floor, I hate to admit it but I can understand the decision. However, considering furniture is routinely thrown off roofs and out of windows in Flogsta, including a flaming sofa last year, I don’t know what it was about this latest incident that pushed them over the edge. I was rather upset when I realised that all the roofs were being locked. This is not the first time they’ve tried to stop students going up there, although this is the first time they’ve done something that is genuinely difficult to circumvent. I for one will miss going up to the roof which I often did to get some night shots of Uppsala such as the ones below.

Unfortunately for Heimstaden, it seems nothing can stop determined students from getting what they want. It seems a metal door, no matter how menacing looking, will not keep determined people off a rooftop. Two nights before Valborg various people in our building managed to squeeze through the gaps in the door frame and open it from the inside. This resulted in quite the rooftop party which eventually got shut down by the police and a certain somebody may or may not have been escorted from the building for screaming “Svin” (Swedish for pigs) at the cops. If you thought they would have responded more brutally to this, you should know there’s not a whole lot that one can do to make Swedes angry, and that includes cops.

“Ever wondered what it’s like to wake up at 2am to find someone in an octopus costume floating around in your kitchen? Believe me, it’s not that great”

The following day, Heimstaden decided to install a gigantic padlock (seriously it was the biggest one I’ve ever seen) on the door to prevent people from opening it. Once again, you might be fooled into thinking that it was game over for the students at Flogsta, but once again, one would be wrong. I left the corridor at 7am on Valborg only to realise that the door was gone. What happened to it? I wasn’t sure, my first thought was that is was invisible now but after I stuck my hand out it seemed it really was gone. I did spend the next few hours wondering what could have happened, I just couldn’t believe some people were capable of doing that. Later that day, I was returning from the grocery store after picking up BBQ supplies when I noticed this lying in the bushes behind out building.

Flogsta 1 : Heimstaden 0

It seems in the ultimate show of defiance, someone (who is later turns out didn’t even live in Flogsta and was actually on parole at the time) took the door off the wall and thew it off the roof. It is actually amazing what people can achieve when they are determined. Unfortunately Heimstaden had the last laugh by shutting down the elevator in our building for 2 weeks. Living on the 7th floor, well it felt like leg day every day. I must say thought, that after the crazy of Valborg, Uppsala is amazingly efficient at cleaning up the broken glass, burn out bikes and mountains of little all over the place. Within a matter of hours, it would be hard to believe the entire place looked like a war zone just a few hours earlier.

Despite the sometimes disturbing nature of Flogsta living, you can at least rest assured that every day bring something interesting.

Some more Valborg Craziness

Despite the sometimes disturbing nature of Flogsta living, you can at least rest assured that every day bring something interesting. Sometimes this may be welcome, other times not so much. Racing drunk people down the stairs, now that’s a fun day. Creating a makeshift cinema on the roof to watch foreign movies, now that’s the more cultured side of Flogsta living. Waking up in the morning to find the floors and ceiling in the hallway and common room are all black and sticky, well not as much fun. But despite that there are great memories to be made here and great friendships to be pursued and a surprisingly large amount of things you can’t imagine yourself doing anywhere else. Ever wondered what it’s like to wake up at 2am to find someone in an octopus costume floating around in your kitchen? Believe me, it’s not that great.

Room With A View