Russia: Staying Clean in Moscow (cont.)

“Here is your room,” said the man. “Here is a phone if you need anything.” He shut the door behind him.

I put my bag and purse on a squashy leather sofa that stood next to a wall housing shelves of liquor glasses. Sasha picked up one of the towels. “This is kind of thin,” she said, holding it up to her chin. “And long.”

It was a sheet. I picked up my sheet, which was obviously meant for spreading on the sauna benches. The cotton was thick and tough. We put our clothes on the leather sofa. Sasha took her waist-length hair out of its braid. She opened the door to the bathroom.

The bathroom had 14-foot ceilings, and the striped walls were covered with blue-patterned tiles. They were chipped and somewhat worn, but still elegant. The shower taps were hidden in one corner. A thick wooden door opened to the sauna, which was already hot. A long metal spoon with a wooden handle hung on a peg next to an old metal bucket. There was room for about six people in the sauna, four if everyone lay prone.

Sasha spooned water from the bucket onto the hissing rocks. Within a few minutes my eyes stung and my skin prickled. “This is great,” I mumbled and continued roasting.

I had expected the dipping pool to be more like a Jacuzzi tub. Instead, the pool was built high above ground. We had to climb into it using a shaky, slippery metal ladder. Grungy pool-blue tiles lined the inside, but the water felt clean and fresh.

After the hot sauna the water felt delicious. The reason it was so high up, I realized, was that it was for standing in, not sitting. “This is gorgeous,” I said, trailing my hands in the water. Sasha dunked her head. “Decadent,” she replied as she headed back to the sauna. “You could have a party in here.”

We roasted and cooled for a good hour. At one point, languishing in the heat of the sauna, I remembered that we had forgotten the birch sticks. “Mm,” said Sasha when I reminded her. She didn’t move an eyelash. I agreed. I could barely lift my hand in the heat; I don’t think I could have given my sister hefty wallops with birch leaves.

After our last dip I considered ordering two chilly vodkas to sip on our leather sofas. But Moscow has changed much in the last ten years, and we had passed several attractive-looking cafes advertising chocolate and Georgian wine on our way to the banya.

At the ticket counter the young man explained that the minimum stay was for two hours, another minor detail the guidebook had forgotten to tell us. While Sasha paid for the minimum price, I looked at the galleries of pictures on the wall.

There every single picture showed grouped men collected on the leather sofas. They sat with white towels around their waists, raising their beer glasses. An embarrassing thought occurred to me. I asked for a brochure of the place. The man opened it in front of me. It pointed out the gilded halls, the Roman-style pool rooms with columns and Greek statues, and rooms full of massage tables.

“Only for men,” the greasy-haired young man snickered at two ignorant tourists who’d forced their way into their male inner-sanctum.

We left and went to a cafe down the street, the kind I wouldn’t have seen in Moscow five years before. I ordered a cold Georgian sauvignon blanc and sumptuous chocolates made by their pastry chef. I flipped open the Sandunovskiye Banya brochure. The text was translated roughly into English: “Washing gives you 10 advantages: clear mind, freshness, energy, health, strength, beauty, cleanliness, a nice colour of your complexion, the feeling of a young man and the attention of beautiful women.”

Only for men, I acknowledged. “No wonder they gave us such strange looks when we came in,” I said. “Did you see all those pictures in the entry hall? The ones of all the men? The private rooms are obviously a guy thing.” Sasha raised her eyebrows at me.

“Nice of the guide book to mention it,” she replied, examining the massage rooms in the brochure. “Next time,” she said, “we’re going to get massages.”

Page 2 of 2  Previous Page

All contents copyright ©2006 Pology Magazine. Unauthorized use of any content is strictly prohibited.