During the month of June this year, the Swedish Embassy together with the Swedish East India Company (SOIC) and the Swedish Institute host a Swedish Summer festival in Jakarta to celebrate the return to Batavia of the Swedish sailing ship Götheborg coinciding with Jakarta’s 479th anniversary.
The Ship Götheborg, a full-scale replica of one of these sailing ships, is presently undertaking a historic trading voyage to China and back following its original route, including a stop over in old Batavia as most of these merchant ships did during the 18th century with each journey taking up to a year and a half or longer to complete.
“With the Swedish Summer festival highlighting the historic as well as contemporary links between Sweden and Indonesia, I would like to invite you to our unique events described in this program: exhibitions, lectures, a Swedish film festival, a Swedish food week, a seminar on information technology as well as visits to the Ship Götheborg. These activities will not only remind us of our shared history, but also show how much we have in common as we look towards the future” states in a note from Lennart Linnér, the Swedish Ambassador to Indonesia.
