Finnish sauna

The sauna is a substantial part of the Finnish culture. There are five million inhabitants and over half a million saunas in Finland. For Finnish people the sauna is a place for easing with friends and family, a place for physical and mental relaxation. Finns think of saunas not as a luxury, but as a necessity.

Practically each Finnish house has a sauna. There are also public saunas at such places as swimming pools and class participant sleep halls. It is very usual for men and women to go to the sauna together, in particular for members of the same family and close friends.

One undresses completely, takes a shower (without soap) and enters either the wet or the dry sauna. In the dry sauna the temperatures range from 60ºC to over a 100ºC, the higher the hotter (one can sit or lie at different levels of the terraced benches, or laude). In the wet sauna the temperature is lower but it feels equally hot. One sits back and lets the heat penetrate one's body and open the pores of the sweating skin. The stones on the furnace (kiuas) in the corner are very hot and if water is thrown on them, a damp cloud of steam fills suddenly the small area, one has to careful not to get burned by the hot steam. After about 15 minutes one leaves and cools down in cold air and having a cold shower or preferably goes for swim in a lake. The process is repeated several times. Finally a shower is taken with soap and shampoo.

Many Finns have a summer cottage with a sauna at one of the thousands of lakes in Finland, and a sauna bath is not normally complete without a refreshing swim, when one leaves the sauna for a break. In winter sauna veterans even cut a hole in the ice and take a bath in the icy water (approx. +1ºC to +4ºC) or they roll around in the snow. They can also use a vasta (or vihta, as it is called in western Finland), a strong wisp or bundle of birch twigs (only the Silver birch, Betula pendula, is appropriate for this). It is immersed in warm water and then used to strike oneself gently with it.

External link: The Finnish Sauna society (http://www.sauna.fi/)