Dear Steemian

In the tourism industry known term dark tourism or black tourism. Dark tourism can be interpreted as a tourism activity to the historic places associated with death or tragedy.

In that sense, a visit to the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, is classified as a dark tourism activity.

On April 28th ago in a rather cold temperature, about 10 degrees Celsius, I had the opportunity to visit the museum.

The main spot to go is the Vasa Museum. The museum is very popular as a tourist destination.

We arrived at around 10:00 local time. The queue at the ticket purchase counter is already snaking. But we do not have to queue up tickets. Our tour guide, Kirsti, had bought tickets ahead of time.

In the room after the entrance is available brochure information about the museum in various languages. At certain hours there is a tour in English and other languages ​​are also organized free of charge by the museum manager.

The local daily, The Local, on September 4, 2017 reported, the number of visitors to the museum in 2016 was 1.3 million people. Particularly in the summer, that means only three months from June to August, the visitor recorded 750,355 people.

That number represents the record for the highest number of summer visits in the history of the museum.

The crowds of visitors made a visit to a place that smelled of death and the tragedy was no longer creepy. Adults and children are passing through there.

Vasa Museum actually entered the maritime museum category, approximately like the Seaman Season in North Jakarta.

Just to compare, Maritime Museum for six months, from January to June 2017, the number of tourists 17,123 people. For a year in 2016, the number of visitors is only 38,310 people.

What's so special about the Vasa Museum or the Vasa Museum?

The museum has only one collection. Yes, one collection, which is an intact ship almost 400 years old. Vasa is the name of a Swedish warship that was made in the early 17th century.

The wooden ship still looks sturdy with its engravings and charming statues.

The history of the ship was incredible. After 333 years buried in the Baltic sea floor, the condition remains intact including when lifted from the seabed.

The figure of the ship and its ornaments depict a socio-political situation of its time. The story of the ship tells of a great dream that led to an embarrassing failure.

However, Sweden transformed the humiliating tragedy into a popular tourism merchandise. In terms of tourism, the ship has become a great success.

The museum site, vasamuseet.se/en, said the warship was first ordered by the King of Sweden, Gustav II Adolf. The goal is to increase the military power of the country.

The achievement of that goal was urgent because Sweden was involved in a war with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Kirsti said the war also smelled of religious sentiments. Sweden is on the side of Protestant and Polish on the Catholic side.

As regional tensions mount, Vasa is expected to become one of the most powerful warships of his time. Ironically, the ship was drowned not by enemy weapons, but by a gust of wind due to the failure of construction.

More embarrassingly, the ship sank just moments after leaving the port of Stockholm on its maiden voyage. The event was witnessed thousands of residents of Stockholm who watched the prime voyage.

Created Dutch

Vasa's story began in January 1625, when Gustav II Adolf signed a contract with Dutch shipbuilding expert Henrik Hybertsson, and his business partner, Arendt de Groote.

Under the contract, the two men will make four new ships for Gustav, one of them Vasa. In 1626, the shipbuilding of Vasa began. When the ship began to be made using the best Swedish oak, the ship's expert fell ill and died in 1627.

After Hybertsson's death, his assistant, Hein Jakobsson, was responsible for the project.

The project continued and Vasa launched in the spring of 1627. At about the same time, Hybertsson died. The ship was ready for operation in the summer of 1628.

Vasa is 69 meters long and 50 meters high. The ship weighs over 1,200 tons, and has 10 screens, 64 cannons, 120 tons of weights, with hundreds of sculptures around it.

Vasa really became an impressive warship to be seen, despite the problems, which are unstable.

One of the reasons for Vasa's instability is the number of changes during the manufacturing process. For example, based on the original plan, Hybertsson made two smaller ships and two larger ones. The two small ones are 39 meters long while the other two are 41 meters in size.

Initially, Vasa was one of the two small ships. When it's done, Vasa turns into a big one.

Swedish navy officials of that time seemed to have noticed the problem with Vasa. In the summer of 1628, the captain overseeing the ship's construction, Söfring Hansson, summoned Vice Admiral Fleming's Deputy Admiral to Vasa.

Hansson worried and expressed his concern to the admiral that the ship was unstable, and unsafe to sail.

To prove it, the captain told his 30 crew to run back and forth on the deck. The ship was shaky. Worrying that Vasa would drown if the men kept running, Fleming ordered the demonstration to be stopped.

Nevertheless, Fleming, who was under the pressure of the king, ordered the captain to keep sailing.

Sinking ship

On August 10, 1628, Vasa embarked on his maiden voyage. About 1,300 meters later, a gust of wind hit the ship. Ships and water flowed in. Within minutes, Vasa sank. A number of his crew were killed.

The investigation was launched soon after. Errors inflicted on Hybertsson. The deceased shipwright could not defend himself and could not be punished either. Thus, the case was closed.

However, Vasa is not completely forgotten. Several decades after the tragedy, a number of attempts were made to raise the ship from the seabed. But it did not work.

In the 1660s, the team of divers managed to rescue a number of ship cannons. Vasa was then left alone at the bottom of the Baltic Sea, and faded from human memory.

In the 1950s, there was another attempt to lift the wreck.

The attempt to lift the ship was finally successful in 1961, or after 333 years of the ship buried in the seabed in front of the City of Stockholm.

The condition of the water where Vasa is located actually makes the ship durable and almost 100 percent intact. After the ship was lifted from the sea, his condition actually began to deteriorate and demand treatment. Treatment efforts have continued to this day.

However, Vasa continues to attract attention in Sweden. The ship became a symbol of the country's superpower, when Sweden was a major force in Europe, and held control of much of the Baltic region.

Tourists are now coming in droves. The museum's spokesman, Martina Siegrist Larsson, confirmed that.

"We have a very interesting offering, a ship that is nearly 400 years old in near perfect condition, and I think the number of visitors is a sign of approval of it," said Martina Siegrist Larsson told The Local.

The head of the museum, Lisa Månsson, said in a statement, "One of the main reasons for our success is that we can offer many visitors the opportunity to take part in Vasa's history in their own language. At the height of the tourist season, we had museum staff who spoke a total of 14 languages. That means we can show off the ship while offering a personalized experience that goes beyond cultural boundaries. "