On the living room floor of a third-floor Klostergatan apartment, a four-metre pool cleaning stick rests against the parquet. Attached to one end is a pulley, and hanging from a long rope at the other, a basket with a bottle of whiskey. It is time for the carnival parade.
Mim and Marcus Lundahl have lived in this apartment with their son for the past 25 years. During that time, at each carnival they have been lowering that basket down to the committee wagon as it passes in the parade below. The tradition, they explain, is not something they invented. It is something they inherited.
When they first moved in as students, the previous tenants made the terms clear: ”If you want this apartment, you must do it.” Those tenants had kept the tradition alive for 30 years themselves, and claimed it had started even before their time.
down in. Foto: Marin Cima.
Mim now works at a dance company, and Marcus is a physician. When Lundagård rang their doorbell, we were welcomed into a bright, spacious living room where colour-coordinated books line the walls and a grand piano stands in the corner. Marcus recalls their attempt to secure the apartment 25 years earlier: “We dressed up and pretended we were married since the people who owned it were religious”.
They got the apartment, and with that, the responsibility of keeping the tradition alive. As for which whiskey — does it matter? “The cheapest one”, they say.
