I didn't mean to write anything this weekend but just this morning I was leafing through my notebook for an entirely different reason and happened to find a plan on the series of postings about Finland I was supposed to write last summer. But hey, things happen when the time is right and the starts are perfectly aligned and it happens to be now. So I decided to write about sauna. BTW did you know the word sauna is actually Finnish? One of the handful of Finnish words that ever made it to Oxford dictionary of English. While sauna as a word was adopted to many other languages to describe a certain type of heated bath, the concept is not unique to Finland, no matter how much we hope it was. In fact many cultures in the northern areas of the globe. Russians and Swedes have sauna. So do some native American tribes (even though their saunas were used for spiritual purposes rather than just washing).
The history of sauna in Finland can be traced back to at least Bronze Age, to times B.C. The original sauna was a pit dug in the ground with a fireplace at the bottom for heating stones. The pit was then covered with furs, birch bark or turf. When water was thrown on the heated stones, vapor was created. Basically, that is what sauna is. A hot room full of steam for sweating. After pits in the ground fell out of fashion, saunas used to be small huts built of wood inside which stones were heated by burning wood for several hours. Note that there was no chimney to let the smoke out, as was the case for mot houses in the middle ages and even until the beginning of 20th century. Nowadays saunas are rooms with wooden walls that have either a wood burning small stove-like thing for heating the stones or an electric devise for heating the stones. Probably the only electric devise you can safely throw water on.
Sauna is and has always been an important feature in the culture. Not so long ago, less than a century, most Finns were born in a sauna due to it being the most sterile and clean space available for such purposes. Most Finns also exited their life on Earth through sauna as it was a place to wash the deceased before burial. Between the birth and death sauna served as a sick room and sometimes the only remedy know for hordes of ailments. There is a saying "if sauna, booze and tar doesn't help, the illness is lethal". While research cannot show reliable evidence of a magical positive impact on health, sauna is a place for relaxation and it is considered refreshing. Plus it cleanses skin from microbes far better than a shower or a bath.
In Finland it is customary to go to sauna completely nude, an idea people not used to this idea sometimes find intimidating. Overnight guests in Finland are quite often offered sauna, and even some businesses offer sauna to their business partners e.g. after negotiations. I remember one workplace team building in sauna. Now, if you happen to be in Finland and receive an invitation to sauna, don't panic. While stripping and going to a naked sauna with people you have never seen, have just met or are friends with but not that close friends, doesn't probably sound like the ultimate fun, it is an experience, so why not give it a go? Admittedly it might not sound like a comfortable idea.
Sometimes people are worried the others will stare or otherwise make the feel ill at ease. Well, if you have a clearly visible scar or a strange birthmark or something like that, I cannot guarantee that people will not be curious. We are all humans and stop being curious the day we stop breathing but curious doesn't mean the same as malicious. And it will very likely not be the first scar or peculiar birthmark people used to sauna culture will see. Which leads me to one more positive aspect of sauna: realistic body image. The image they feed us through fashion, movies, etc is so very unrealistic. Yet it is a powerful factor in making people ashamed of their bodies and feeling uncomfortable in their own skin. Perfect bodies and perfect skin without a trace of pores and cellulite requires a lot of work- on computer. Most of us have birthmarks, moles, scars, most women, even thin women, have cellulite, and when we age skin starts to sag, body becomes less firm and that is natural. And as an ending remark, even though people go to sauna naked it is not associated with sex. It's associated with washing.
