You're standing on the street in a Swedish town and you see a family having dinner, discussing something under the light of an Ikea chandelier. You're not peeking - they're just not hanging curtains.
“It’s like living in a museum!” wrote Spanish tourist Carlos Mendez in a Google review.
But the Swedes are not ashamed. Why? The answer lies in a strange cultural phenomenon that even The New York Times called “the Nordic dictatorship of transparency.”
In 2023, journalist Anna-Lena Svensson conducted an experiment: she covered her windows with dark curtains for a week. The result? Neighbors called the police, suspecting that she was "hiding a corpse."
The story didn't start yesterday. Back in the 17th century, Swedish churches forbade parishioners from hanging fabrics on their windows - it was considered a "sinful luxury."
Today, open windows have become a social marker. “If you close your curtains, it means you have something to hide,” cultural scientist Marcus Lindgren explained in an interview with the BBC .
The magazine Dagens Samhälle conducted a survey: 89% of Swedes said they felt “guilty” when trying to find privacy.
Even psychotherapists in Stockholm advise clients: “Don’t hide – it increases anxiety.”
But there is a dark side. In 2021, blogger Emma Karlsson from Gothenburg posted a video: "My neighbor is watching me through the window. The police said: 'Move if you don't like it.'"
The fact is that in Sweden, peeping is not considered a crime if it occurs “in a public space.”
Lawyer Peter Malmqvist admitted in an article for SVT Nyheter :
"The law does not protect privacy, but the right of society to control the individual."
Architecture also plays a role. Swedish windows are designed so that they remain "part of the street".
Designer Erik Johansson revealed the secret in an interview with Dezeen :
"The glass is covered with a special film - during the day it is mirrored, at night it is transparent. This creates the illusion of openness."
There is also an unspoken rule in Sweden: if there are no children in the house, the windows must be visible.
"When we had our son, our neighbors gave us curtains. It was a hint: 'Now you can hide the mess,'" Sarah Johnson, an expat from the United States, told the Scandinavian Life podcast.
“Swedes are willing to tolerate discomfort, just so long as they don’t break the rules of the pack,” sums up psychiatrist Hanna Bergman in her book The Nordic Paradox .
