2015-06-24
843
A. Баня is a venue that is as thoroughly Russian as the gathering around the kitchen table and just as important a meeting ground. Русская баня is a cross between Finnish sauna and the steamy Turkish bath. But like mushroom hunting, it is not merely the act of bathing that counts, but the entire process – the expedition to the baths; это отработанный ритуал, во время которого человек взвешивается, намыливается, парится, ополаскивается, снова взвешивается; and the conviviality, праздный разговор, and joking that go with communal bathing. The regulars get to know each other. Потому что баня – это вид отдыха, the closest thing that Russian males have to a men’s club. Посетитель платит за вход, gets a rough sheet в которую русские заворачиваются наподобие римской тоги, and rents веник, которым русские парятся to help the steam do its cleansing and, at the same time, leave the gentle fragrance of birch.
Like so much of Russian life, relief comes at the moment of escape from self-torture when bathers flee to предбанник. There they lounge around naked or небрежно обернутые в свои простыни telling jokes, arguing over last night’s hockey game against the Canadians or a футбольный матч между командами Динамо и Спартак. It is a pleasant place where people беззаботно прислушиваются к чужим разговорам и вступают в них, proffering unsought advice on how to handle women, where to find дефицитный товар или что нужно делать, чтобы не стареть.
Practically everyone sends банщик, out to the hallway for mugs of watery жигулевское пиво. Plenty of bathers, playing hookey from work, arrive with bread and копченая колбаса или шпроты to wash down with their beer. But the favourite delicacy, one for which I can vouch, is вобла – the Russian answer to pretzels, potato chips and salted peanuts. Some contend that the best time to visit баня is in the morning because the steam is drier as one veteran explained; many more prefer the evening for socializing. But everyone counts on making it a real outing.
