Full Steam Ahead

The longer I’m here, the more I begin to understand the country and the culture. It comes in small dribs and drabs, but my infrequent epiphanies are quite rewarding – shedding light in otherwise dark areas. This weekend, I think I had another small breakthrough.

An acquaintance of mine invited me join a group of folks heading to the banya, or Russian steam bath. He had rented a private one and a good group was attending, so I gladly accepted.

This particular banya complex is far from the metro, what seemed like long miles down snowy, forlorn “Hammer and Sickle” street. I walked past darkened factories and the odd unfinished residential apartment building. In an attempt to find the address, I entered a small courtyard. All the buildings were unmarked and unlit, but suddenly a door opened and a security guard called to me. “The banya is this way”, he said.

The complex was very nice, and done up in faux country style – interior thatched roof, rustic exposed wooden beams, etc. Our private space was on two levels, and had a pool, a lounge, a dining table set for 10, changing rooms, a billiards table, and of course, a small teak banya.

Banya etiquette is quite strict in Russia. Change, put on sandals, and into the sauna. Single sex steam rooms are naked; in mixed company, like our group, one wears a swimsuit or a long sheet.

Inside the banya, hardcore types wear a felted wool hat to keep the tips of their ears from burning. Also, they take turns beating one another with branches of dried birch leaves in order to bring the blood, and the toxins, closer to the surface. Real Russians will not speak in the banya – they prefer to sit silently and concentrate on their sweating. After a dose of superheated air, you pop out of the banya and into the pool for a shocking refresher. Repeat as necessary.

Unfortunately, I cannot help but play the role of the non-russian in these scenarios. I won’t sit in the unrelenting heat long enough to endanger my unprotected extremities. I have been beaten with birch branches before and know that I hate the sensation enough to refuse to ever do it again. I suddenly feel chatty in a banya for some reason, too, and just can’t obey the no talking rule. I’m also not a real fan of jumping in the pool afterwards, either.

But otherwise, I’m an excellent banya guest.

Truth be told, I don’t really like the banya. What I really like is hanging out in between steam doses. Talking, playing billiards, ordering beers over an intercom from our waitress who miraculously appears at the dining table only moments later.

After a couple of weeks of crushingly cold weather, however, I now appreciate the banya more than before. It felt very good to let the heat soak into me and bring so much angst from my frozen core out to the surface, where it could be painlessly perspired away. I felt the subsequent doses of heat recharging my winter battery, hopefully providing me with enough fortitude to weather the rest of the winter.

Or at least until my next steam dose.

But either way, I think I now understand the fanatical devotion to the banya. To balance one extreme condition, the Russians seem to go find the equal and opposite force to countervail it.