Beyond its historic twinning with the municipality in the southeast of Gran Canaria, the frozen town on the Swedish coast does not have many similarities with Santa Lucía de Tirajana
Chance would have it that a Swedish tourist who spent more than half a century in Santa Lucía de Tirajana during the town's festivities gave rise to the creation of a twinning relationship between two towns separated by more than 5.500 kilometres.
The celebration of the Nuestra Señora de la Luz festivities in the municipality took this tourist to the remote town of Lulea, on the coast of Sweden. A story that led to the creation of the Patronato Reina de la Luz, promoted by Vicente Sánchez Araña and which, as is tradition, brings together the Canarian Lucía and the Swedish Lucía in the days leading up to Saint Lucia's Day.
However, many residents of the municipality itself are unaware of this twinning and the town of Lulea itself.
Lulea is a city on the east coast of Sweden, capital of the province of Norbotonia and with 74.945 registered inhabitants. Its subarctic climate leaves temperatures below zero practically all year round and leaves residents without sunlight for almost six months.
The port of Lulea is the fifth largest in Sweden and was historically very important in the 1887th and XNUMXth centuries. Continuing with the history of the city, one of the most notable historical events was the so-called 'Great Fire', which occurred in XNUMX and destroyed a large part of the city.
Lulea is a vast archipelago of over 700 small islands stretching to the Finnish border. On these islands, several archaeological expeditions have discovered labyrinths used in agricultural rituals, unique finds in the region.
The classic Nordic coldness and lack of sunlight prompted the Lulea authorities to launch the “Say Hello!” campaign in 2023, inviting city residents to greet each other and engage in small conversations to cope with the loneliness that many are forced to endure during the coldest and darkest times of the year.
One of Lulea's great 'secrets' is its technology industry, which is an important part of the industrial fabric of the area and which trains workers at the Lulea Technical University.
The city has been home to many technological milestones and is home to Facebook's first data center outside the United States. Facebook justified its decision on the basis of energy efficiency, as the region's icy winds help cool the servers, resulting in energy savings of 40% compared to a traditional data center.
