The banya...

I am officially relaxed. The banya was amazing... and, according to Margaret, after a visit to the banya, one must retire to their home and sleep, lay around and relax for a few hours. Yes ma'am, I can do that! I'm so glad that I was able to go with Margaret - otherwise I wouldn't have known where to go or what to do ... and the tradition and the routine would have been totally lost on me. It would be so nice to have something like this at home, a traditional bathing thing - but I don't think that it would really catch on - hanging out with your friends in your birthday suit, scrubbing each other's backs? Errr... nope. The fully clothed coffee tradition is fairly entrenched anyways. As are lunch dates. And seawall walks - pretty much anything but with the clothes ON... which is fine by me!

The main room - each bench is a little bathing station, with metal buckets filled with water for washing!

SO... Margaret bought tickets yesterday - they sell 15 tickets for a one and a half hour block (for 73 rubles, $3) - apparently afternoons are the way to go if you want to avoid the crowds - the six o'clock and eight o'clock time slots are usually sold out, and I was happy with the early afternoon slot. Sure! There was a small locker room with small wooden cupboards where we left all of our things, save for a towel, soap and sponge, head covering (cotton scarf) and flip flops. In we go. Margaret explained that most people follow a certain routine: shower, sauna, soap scrub down at individual washing bucket, shower, sauna, tea, sauna, scrub down, shower etc.... so this is what we did. I also opted to take the cold water bucket shower after the sauna... so cold... but so refreshing. After round two, we had some tea and a snack - Margaret pulled out a king-size Snickers bar which totally surprised me.. I thought fruit or nuts or something healthy or natural would have been the number one option for a sauna snack, but ??? whatever! After tea we went for rounds three and four, which were the same as the previous ones except, before the last sauna, we put honey on ourselves. Er, yes, honey. Sounds interesting, no? Margaret explained to me that it is good for the joints and ligaments, as well as for the skin.... so we massaged small amounts into our skin before hitting the sauna. This was followed by a shower sans soap (no cold water dump)... and that was it! We had another cup of tea, and sat around talking until our time was up. Some people also bring in birch branches and (this is what I understood) after soaking them in hot water, "beat" themselves (Margaret's word) with the branches to open their pores, increase circulation and exfoliate. There were only three of us in the banya in our time slot, and no one did any birch-branch self-beating... it sounds a bit masochistic anyways, not sure if that's something I want to see. So... it was an experience, and a very worthwhile one! I feel clean, relaxed but invigorated, and only smell a little bit like honey!