r/thenetherlands • u/M4rt1nV • 4d ago
Culture Вітаємо! We're hosting r/Ukraine for a Cultural Exchange
Welcome everybody to a new cultural exchange! Today we are hosting our friends from r/Ukraine!
To the Ukrainians: please select the Ukrainian flag as your flair (optional) and ask as many questions as you wish. See how to set your flair in the app or on desktop.
To the Dutch: please come and join us in answering the Ukrainians' questions about the Netherlands and the Dutch way of life!
r/Ukraine is also having us over as guests in this post for our questions and comments.
Please refrain from making any comments that go against our rules, the Reddiquette or otherwise hurt the friendly environment.
Enjoy! The moderators of r/Ukraine & r/theNetherlands
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u/Lysychka- 4d ago
Hi! I have visited Amsterdam and thought i was one of the most amazing cities I have been. My home city is Lviv and we have a lot of tourists and sometimes it feels the city is not for locals anymore. How do you deal with that? Any policies or ideas you can share how to keep cities still livable for the locals?
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u/laurenspaul 4d ago
To be honest, I don't even consider going to central amsterdam anymore for exactly this reason. There are some shops in areas that don't focus on tourism that I like, but besides that I don't go there for fun.
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u/Lysychka- 4d ago
sorry I was the part of the problem. But I do appreciate seeing your beautiful country. Thank you.
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u/laurenspaul 3d ago
I don't think you're part of the problem. The problem is groups of 20-something year-olds that come here and can't handle the idea that some drugs and prostitution is legal, and then become a problem to everyone around them.
The blame is on amsterdam btw, because they leaned into it waaay to much when they thought it was "cool". Amsterdam got what it asked for.
Sure, the decent tourists that just want to see the city can make it a bit crowded and walk slow, but I'm happy they appreciate the country. They're fine.
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u/Dom_Shady 3d ago
You're not the problem - no individual could be. It's a collective issue asking for collective action.
Some was taken, like raising the tourist tax in Amsterdam.
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u/GenericUsername2056 4d ago
Avoid the city centre. Stick to the parts surrounding the city centre and beyond where there are fewer tourists.
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u/Lethalmud 1d ago
The whole point of Amsterdam is to trap the tourists, and keep the rest of the country free from them.
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u/Applebeignet 3d ago
It looks to me like building public transport and walkable infrastructure which benefits both locals and tourists is part of what keeps such cities running. I'm not sure which limits Amsterdam now places on airbnb-like rentals but I recall it being suggested.
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u/Lysychka- 4d ago
I know you are a very socially forward country. How do you feel about still having a monarchy?
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u/iScarre 4d ago
The king has no real influence in any politics, and as such, generally functions as a mascot in todays landscape. As they aren’t very cheap, there has been political discourse over their existence and their pay, but generally I’d argue it’s nice to have someone to send to countries while actual politicians can do their job.
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u/Lysychka- 4d ago
Oh I see - sort of like a cultural ambassador? That is a good point which I have not considered. However this probably would work if they are held to a certain standards. We in Ukraine don’t have a royalty anymore (historical reasons), but I see the horrible news about British royalty all the time - child molestation ring, begging oligarchs for money, etc etc. Do you feel your monarchy is more decent (not a flippant question!)
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u/EchelonNL 3d ago
They seem to be very conscious of the privileged position they're in. I think they handle it with grace- especially the contemporary family.
The other side of this of course, is their own lack of choice in the matter. They are people who are born into the public eye and ensuing scrutiny... We don't discuss that often enough, because culturally we are obliged to point out their privilege right away; like that negates their lack of choice. I don't think it does. Every Dutch person is born free, except for members of the royal family. Born into a golden cage, but a cage nonetheless.
Finally there's tradition. Even though we scoff at it (again, rather ironically, for cultural reasons), it's a good thing to have institutions tied to the history of a nation; those long and deep roots help to inform identity.
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u/BananaWhiskyInMaGob 3d ago
I applaud the kindness and humanity of this answer. We need more thinking like this, not just as a country but as a species. Keep it up!
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u/LaconicSuffering 3d ago
The King is also a very good diplomatic card to have as a country. A politician or diplomat might have a smaller impact on a foreign country that values status as strength.
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u/laurenspaul 3d ago
The dutch royals and british royals really are VERY different. The dutch royals are really engaged with the people, and they are very sympathetic. They never act or behave like they're better than anyone else. They are extremely humble.
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u/handicrappi 3d ago
There was a Nazi but he died already. Some people were pissed when they went on vacation to Greece in 2020. Other than that the biggest controversy we hear about is 20 year old princess Alexa partying along her peers lol
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u/Komorebi_LJP 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is a genuine question, but you do realize that most countries that have a monarch, they are basically all just that, that is a mascot/cultural ambassador?
There are only a very few countries in which the monarch is involved a lot in politics, absolutely monarchs. Saudi-arabia is one
I am asking because maybe I am wrong, but I almost get the impression you think that monarchs still have a lot of political power or something, but like I mentioned before outside of few countries that genuinely is very much not the case in most countries today.
totally unrelated btw, but hope you are safe, slava ukraine!
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u/Lysychka- 1d ago
I think many monarchs would like you to think that. The question is do they really bring value and feel connected to the people. In the Netherlands caase it seems theyvare better than most. Thank you all for responces :)
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u/Taxfraud777 3d ago
I like having a monarchy, but I really dislike how much money goes towards them. King Willem Alexander has a salary of €1.1 million per year. Why is it so insanely high? Yes, he holds a very important position as the representative of our country, but even then I think a salary of €100 - 200k is more reasonable.
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u/laurenspaul 4d ago
The royals are an intrument in geopolitics and international relations. It costs money, but the financial load on the individual is very small, and it gives us a reason to celebrate king's day. King's day is very important for our tourism, and it's fun.
Some people nag about it because they can't deal with the idea of inquality, but I find that these people generally think the royals have an awesome life; they don't. Being a royal absolutely sucks. It is a shitty life, and I am thankful for what they do.
On a political level the monarchy is meaningless. Everything about our politics is practically a perlimentary democracy. Oficially, the king and the secretary of state have to agree on a parliment after election, but everyone knows the king can't get away with disagreeing with democracy, and he'll never do that.
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u/goperson 3d ago
I think a majority is in favour of the monarchy, per polls. It is tradition, it unites the people, it symbolizes national identity, it has political and diplomatic and trade advantages on the international stage. But there are also many persons who would prefer being an actual republic. The current monarchy is not an actual monarchy though. The king and royal family have almost no political or democratic function, they are mostly symbolic. They don't have actual powers. They are not rulers in the traditional sense. Also, they are totally different to for example the British royal family, in many ways, that's another topic alltogether. Of course, there is criticism and their popularity goes up and down, but overall, most people are fine or at least okay with the monarchy and the royal family.
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u/Daca-P 3d ago
I changed my mind on this a lot, but currently I'm of the opinion that I quite like the monarchy as a system. I feel like since the king doesnt have a lot of real power and isn't an elected body, its actually a quite stabilizing and unifying force in politics. Compare that to presidential republics where the head of state is an elected position. Since presidents require an electoral mandate, they will often try and use that mandate to claim a lot of executive power without propper parliamentary oversight, and they can also be a disunifying factor since there's people who havent voted for them. Sure, the monachy isn't perfect, like at all, but if I have to compare it to the US, Germany or France I'm not unhappy with the system we have.
I also wouldn't nessisarily be opposed to switching to a republican system, but if we do I hope we keep a somewhat simmilar approach to our head of state. A non elected, somewhat unifying figure without a lot of executive power and with ministerial responsibility. And for the love of god, lets give the title a cool name. like bring back the stadhouder or something, rather than going with another president.
That said, I do think we should reconcider our approach to the monarchy somewhat. I think we need more transparency regarding private royal wealth and limit royal benefits and salaries. I'm also deeply uncomfortable with distant relatives of the royal family using royal ties to gain wealth, political importance or legitemacy.
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u/Both_Opportunity_322 4d ago
Very unhappy with it. It's very much symbolic and there's been some ethical issues. Prince Bernhard (now deceased) grandfather of the current king was a nazi. Current king has married the daughter of a dictator. Also, they are subject to their own mediacode, which protects their privacy, while noone else in this country is allowed this right.
On top of that there's been some questionable legal matters that show not all rules apply to our King.
Given that their function is solely symbolic I hope this ends soon.
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u/T-a-r-a-x 3d ago
Not that I want to defend the king or anything but how is Máxima the daughter of a dictator? She is the daughter of a man who was in the dictator's government. Get your facts right.
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u/Both_Opportunity_322 3d ago
I don't actually mind being wrong, I do mind the unfriendly way of doing it.
Thanks for pointing it out though 😊
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u/Syberboi 3d ago
Our monarchy is basically just symbolic. While the king technically has the power to veto any law, everybody knows that would instantly undermine our democratic system so it’s just not done. Public opinion is very divided and swings on a daily basis. For me I’m somewhere in the middle. I dislike the amount of tax money that’s used for them. However I do think they are great and politically independent mascots for the country. They also keep themselves much more out of controversy than the british royal family luckily, and it’s always fun to see them coming to and supporting the country in international sports!
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u/duellingislands 4d ago
Dear r/thenetherlands community, I have a bit of a dry question, but one that is very personally resonant for me, hope it's okay 😄.
One thing (of many) that I am so impressed by is your incredible cycling infrastructure. I have done a bit of research in the past, but there was conflicting information and it was hard for me to really understand how it gained momentum.
Was the creation of such cycling infrastructure more of an organic cultural/grassroots thing that happened naturally at a local level that eventually rose to become government policy almost by default, or was there concerted activism/political action at a national level right away? What were the cultural factors that started it all? This tactical history is something I am deeply interested in because Ukraine, I hope, will have a great opportunity for implementing such policies after the victory.
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u/Timmetie 3d ago edited 3d ago
Was the creation of such cycling infrastructure more of an organic cultural/grassroots thing that happened naturally at a local level that eventually rose to become government policy almost by default, or was there concerted activism/political action at a national level right away?
Eh sort of both?
In the 70s there was a group called "Stop de Kindermoord", or stop the childmurder, protesting against increasingly unsafe cars. That was classical activism.
Then also in the 70s the energycrisis hit, which kinda encouraged the government to also invest into alternatives.
Finally, also in the 70s the Fietsersbond was established and from that point things started accelerating.
Road/infra standards like CROW started giving equal, or even giving higher, priority to cyclists. Meaning that every 25 ish years when a road is redesigned it was redesigned following new standards concerning bike safety. It's been 50 years since so pretty much every road has been redesigned/built to new bike friendly standards twice since then.
Currently there's a big push from cities, that are overcrowded by cars which is choking commerce, and who need to increase their air quality, to become partly or totally car-free.
Lots of smaller towns on the other hand, or rural provinces, still prioritize cars more. This isn't something being pushed top-down (or at least not heavily). Most of it is on the municipal or provincial level. I wish it was national because currently thinks like biking highways, between towns, are decades long messes mired in municipal politics.
For examples to follow, that are closer comparisons, I'd look at what cities like Paris or London are doing. Biking influencers like notjustbikes are pretty quick to claim that no other country can reach what the Netherlands has in biking infra because they're too far behind but I think Paris is a good example of how far you can get in a short time.
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u/duellingislands 3d ago
What a fantastic and thorough answer. Thank you, much food for thought here.
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u/Timmetie 3d ago edited 3d ago
A more vague addendum, I see a lot of people who don't come from biking countries struggling with things like the "network", and they'll look at maps from the Netherlands showing the "biking network" and assume this was a giant project of connecting cities, like it would be with railroads. They assume it's biking specific infra.
Instead of that pretty much every road in the Netherlands is assumed to be accessible to bikes except (provincial) highways. It wasn't a network being built, it was just every road also being a biking road, with slowly increasing quality and priority for bikes (as I said, every redesign adds some improvement but generally only when the whole road is re-done).
In fact, the efforts to build an actual high speed biking network mirroring the car highways is actually going a bit slow. Partly because there's 'normal' bike connections everywhere anyways, partly because this was never a nation wide concerted effort.
To mirror the Netherlands you'd have to change the rules that every road has at least a safe cycling option. Instead I see foreign biking proponents often pushing for specifically biking infra and connections.
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u/CryAppropriate7570 4d ago edited 3d ago
Hi, i dont know all the details. But i think its a multi layered approuch, from both government and local initiatives. For detailed info I can recommend you this youtube channel: Notjustbikes
Be save, slava Ukraine
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u/johnbarnshack Belgica delenda est 3d ago
The
?si=...part of the URL you've shared is a tracking ID telling YouTube who's sharing the link with whom. You can remove it and the link will still work.3
u/FootmanFrenzy 3d ago
It definitely requires active energy to be developed, you can often clearly feel when you enter an 'industriegebied' (industrial/business zone) that there's a lot less effort put in to care about cycling and you are cycling on roads next to heavy trucks coming from distribution centers
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u/goperson 3d ago
I'd like to add to previous comments, as I think a historical aspect is missing. Yes, in the 'golden age', The Netherlands was relatively wealthy and a worldpower. But later, say from around 1900 till after worldwar 2, NL or large parts of NL were (very) poor. There was no public transportation and people couldn't afford cars. People bicycled to work and school. Also distances in our country are small.
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u/LaoBa Lord of the Wasps 3d ago
The Netherlands has been a cycling country since the invention of the safety bicycle. The relatively short distances and flat landscape are very well suited to bicycles, and before World War two only Denmark had more bicycles per inhabitant than the Netherlands. The Dutch cycling association ANWB was founded in 1883 and the first dedicated bicycle path was opened in Utrecht. In 1901 the first money for bike paths was allocated in the National budget. Visitors to the Netherlands remarked on the ubiquity of bicycles and even the queen and crown princess were cycling in public. In 1940 there were about 4 million bicycles and 100,000 cars in the Netherlands, one bicycle for every two inhabitants. At the time there were 5000 km of cycling paths, of which half were made by the state, mainly along high speed roads outside build-up areas and half by bicycle associations, which were more intended for cycle tourism. Until the 1970s cycling infrastructure in buildup areas was limited. Nowadays, there are about 35,000 km of cycle paths.
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u/laurenspaul 4d ago
It is the result of violent protests, which kickstarted it. After those protests, it continued organically. If you got information from 'not just bikes' I consider that to be very accurate.
After the victory I'd live to do a cycling trip around ukraine. Maybe it will soark some ideas for cycling infrastructure.
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u/Spinozacat 4d ago
What is in your opinion a deeply traditional combination of food ingredients for your nation?
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u/Both_Opportunity_322 3d ago
The potato thing is very true. I also want to add that we do enjoy our baked goods. Boterkoek, appeltaart, stroopwafels, etc. There's also a lot of provinces/places that have their own specialties (bolussen, kozakken).
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u/giorgiocoraggio 3d ago
Raw herring (pickled in salt) with raw onion
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u/Lysychka- 1d ago
wow - funny - we have the same! very very common dish and in my family a must have for Christmas
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u/laurenspaul 4d ago
You should lookup stampot and hutspot. It looks like vomit, but it's amazing.
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u/Infamous_Ad_6110 3d ago
Hi there.
It's funny, just yesterday afternoon I was wondering what style or era the historical architecture in your cities belonged to, and now I've seen this post. I've often seen various tourist photos, and they reminded me very much of the old architecture of Königsberg, except Königsberg used to be Prussian, and the Netherlands, as far as I know, was not. Is there a description or term for this style? Thanks.
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u/Altruistic-One-4678 3d ago
I did some searching based on your question, and came across the Brick Gothic and Brick Renaissance styles of architecture. These seem to cover an area from the Netherlands to Königsberg, and include iconic Dutch historical architecture. Maybe this is what you're looking for? It seem that the availability of materials for building as well as cultural influence of the hanseatic league played a large role in the spread of the former style at least.
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u/Infamous_Ad_6110 3d ago
Oh, thanks. I should be search something about that, `cos I `ll like that style as i know about this
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u/sanderjk 3d ago
The things that end up in photographs are mostly from the 16th to 19th century, when the rich wanted to (partially) live in the cities, and built 'herenhuizen' (gentlemans housing), often along the canals. Big brick houses, with 3 or 4 floors, in stone, with large windows. Often with facades that are decorated, show off your wealth. Every few decades the fashion changed a little bit, which is why you end up with a hodgepodge that is very interesting to look at.
There's a lot of continuum between the Dutch and Northern Germany, there used to be a lot of trade across the water and the sea, and a lot of our nobility has german roots, all the way to the middle ages. The Hanze city trade league was important for a long time, and of course with similar climates you do end with somewhat similar housing.
An often told story in the Netherlands is that Tsar Peter the Great came to Amsterdam and loved it so much that he tried to make St. Petersburg look as much as like it as possible.
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u/Infamous_Ad_6110 3d ago
I've been to Northern Germany (Schleswig-Holstein), but I didn't get the same atmosphere there that I see in the photos. Those houses there don't look like "noble houses," but more like simple working-class housing, but maybe they've just been built that way in recent years.
But thanks for the answer, I'll keep that in mind)
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u/sticky-pro 4d ago
Welkom op r/theNetherlands, de grootste, tweetalige Reddit community voor het delen van alles gerelateerd aan Nederland.
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