If you visit Almhult in southern Sweden there is only one place to stay — the Ikea Hotel. In the drawer of the sparse hotel room, furnished with an Ikea bed, Ikea curtains and Ikea Grusblad duvet, you find two publications — the Gideons New Testament and the Ikea catalogue. This is the first sign that Almhult is no ordinary town, but the centre of a cult, northern Europe’s very own Pyongyang, where the Allen key has replaced the nuclear bomb and Ingvar Kamprad, Ikea’s founder, is the locals’ Kim Il-sung. It is the place of Kamprad’s birth and where he returned — from tax exile in Switzerland — to spend his final days. When I visited a couple of years ago he was treated…

Source: The Times January 30, 2018 00:01 UTC