There is a famous Russian movie that is shown every New Years Eve called "Slokhim Parom." It means "easy steam." The movie is set in Soviet times. There is a group of men sitting together in a Banya in Moscow city. (A banya is like a sauna). They have too much to drink and put the wrong person on the plane to Leningrad (St Petersburg). The joke is that as all the buildings look alike and all the streets have the same name (an exaggeration of the truth), his key from Moscow lets him into the apartment at the same address in Leningrad.
The movie is an amusing cult classic in Russia. The plot is based upon a staple of Russian life, the Banya. A Banya is like a sauna house. A fire heats up water that in turn heats the room. To create steam you can throw water on to hot rocks. The goal is to sit in the room and "sweat it out." This cleans out the pores in ways that a shower can not. If you like you can also take some birch leaves and whack the skin to further open up the pores. This is followed by a wash and a rinse in cold water (which incidentally is very cold in contrast). The temperature in a Banya can get up to around 60-80 degrees celsius.
I have enjoyed two banya sessions on this holiday to Krasnoyarsk.
Today the New Russians (the ultra rich) like to build "kottezh-es" and build "sa-oo-na-s" attached to them. It seems that the New Russians are some how ashamed of their Russian culture and have to seek a Western equivalent.
1 comment:
Went to a 'cottage' (ie. more like a mansion) and they had a sauna, but they much preferred to use the banya out the back. They used the sauna for when only one or two people wanted one as it was all electric. Whenever the banya was used socially (as is a big part of the 'banya' culture) nothing but the real thing sufficed. It's a bit hard to jump in the snow from an indoor sauna.
It's just not that quick to get a banya heated up and has to be planned in advance - hence the convenience of the sauna for 'everyday' use.
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