28/04/2026, Föreningen Kirunas Rötter (Kiruna Roots Association) Headquarters, Old City Town Kiruna, Sweden

Archive of the Everyday for Kiruna

Leif Keskitalo has lived in Kiruna (Sweden) for most of his life, remaining connected to the town and its mining history. He worked for 33 years in the Kiruna mines before retiring, carrying out underground maintenance work on production machinery. Reflecting on the changes he witnessed, he describes how the machines became “bigger and bigger”, increasingly automated and less dependent on workers. Despite this, he says he loved his work, “The best place to work is underground. It❜s home for real”. Speaking about life in Kiruna today, Leif expressed sadness over the disappearance of the old town, how streets, shops and cinemas have vanished, “It❜s not just empty, it´s gone”, he says. After selling his apartment, Leif moved to a new village in 2019 and then relocated again a year ago, only around 150 metres from his previous home. In his former neighbourhood, most neighbours were colleagues from the mines. Nowadays, he still meets with two former neighbours who live nearby, however other have been dispersed across the town. Leif remembers the old Kiruna full of shops, cinemas and people gathering in the streets every weekend. He also recalls the LKAB crisis in the 80s, when many people left Kiruna and never returned, moving to southern Sweden for more than forty years. Reflecting on the continuing transformation of the town, he says: “Somehow, someday, someone needs to wake people up to realise what is happening here”.