Behind the graffiti-sprayed walls of an evacuated military compound, a Danish hippie colony continues to live out a 1960s dream of anarchy, love and marijuana.

Christiania, once occupied by hippie squatters in 1971, who declared it an autonomous “free town,” is a picturesque 18th-Century citadel in central Copenhagen.

It advertises itself as a “paradise for losers.”

About 700 adults and 250 children still live in the controversial compound, made up of about 86 acres of prime waterfront real estate. Ordinary Danes see the place as either a worthy social experiment or a provocative anachronism.


“Laws. No thanks,” someone has scrawled on a wall.

“Christiania is as close to anarchy as you will ever get,” said Wanda Liszt, a spokesman for the Christianites, which is what the town’s inhabitants call themselves.

“Our only laws are: ‘no hard drugs,’ ‘no guns,’ ‘no violence’ and ‘no ca”

About 500,000 people visit Christiania each year. Many come to buy marijuana on the infamous “Pusher Street” where soft drugs are openly displayed. Others come for the restaurants, night spots, rock concerts and theaters.


“Social security clients . . . the young with no jobs, the homeless--they all come here to enjoy the peaceful green setting and the magical mixture of village and urban life,” a Christiania guide leaflet says.

“They cannot find these things where they live, in dark apartments and dreary institutions where nobody has time to talk and a person enjoying a beer on a park bench is frowned upon,” it says.

A visitor is struck by the heaps of junk and rubbish, the smell of firewood used to heat the old stone barracks, building facades in need of a coat of paint and seemingly passive people.

“Who’s to decide how clean Christiania should be? Should the inhabitants set the standards or should you? We don’t go poking around your back yard,” said Peter Soerensen, another Christianite spokesman.


Half of Christiania’s inhabitants live on the Danish state’s generous social security checks. But there is a dynamic side to the community.

It has its own day-care centers for children, a cinema, an opera, various workshops, a bathhouse, a hairdresser, riding stables, shops, art galleries, even a post office.

“Christianites also receive mail,” said Liszt with a grin. “Usually from the authorities.

“Christiania is like the old Montmartre (bohemian) quarter in Paris with its ragtag mixture of people. Although you won’t find artists like Toulouse-Lautrec here, you will find the odd pickpocket and whore,” Liszt said.


A row of new private houses, some quite fashionable, which residents built along a scenic waterfront, tell another story.

“You’ll find all kinds here, hippies, drug dealers, and even people with rather bourgeois lifestyles, leaving their kids at the day-care center, working 9 to 5 and watching television in the evening,” Soerensen said.

The community’s relations with the Danish state and the Defense Ministry, which owns the area, have always been stormy.

But Denmark, with a tradition for tolerance and shunning confrontation, has never sent in police or troops to throw the squatters out.


Plans to somehow evict them faded as Christiania became an accomplished fact.

Defense Ministry section chief Soeren Stensbo said Christiania was, perhaps, not such a bad deal for society.

“It would cost a lot more to house these people in city apartments and social institutions, and to provide municipal day-care for their children,” he said.

But many Christianites have mixed feelings about “normalization,” its effects on autonomy and on the marijuana trade that police want to stamp out.


“Why not normalize the rest of society instead, let it enjoy our kind of self-government? Why can’t we be allowed to enjoy a leisurely marijuana joint in the sun without being harassed by police?” Soerensen said.