The invigorating dry heat of the Finnish sauna, the relaxing meditative steam of the hammam are two unique bathing rituals with clearly defined rules. The choice depends on what effect you expect.
No country can present a patent for the invention of the bath. Since ancient times, different peoples, each in their own way, have used hot steam for hygienic and medical purposes. There are bathhouses in all cities of Asia Minor, the Middle East or North Africa. They are called differently: Turkish or Moorish baths, hammam (in Arabic – “source of heat”). In Muslim culture, ablutions are prescribed by religion. “And if you are unclean, then cleanse yourself,” says the Quran. In ancient times, the prosperity of the city was judged by the number of baths. For example, in Baghdad, the city of “Thousand and One Nights”, there were about 30 thousand of them!
In Russia, the construction of a house or dacha often begins with a bathhouse. Unlike Europe, where bathhouses were outlawed twice at different stages of history, the chronicle of the Russian steam room did not know breaks. In our bath you can not only wash, but also relax, receive guests and even sleep. Such a variety of possibilities is probably due to the fact that the real Russian bath actually combines the features of many bath traditions. Including the Finnish sauna and the oriental hammam, the fundamental difference between which many do not suspect.
About it:
- Elena Stepanova “Bath, sauna. Health recipes”, Eksmo, 2004.
- “Baths and saunas. Health Encyclopedia”, AST, Stalker, 2002.
- Anatoly Rubinov “History of the Bath”, UFO, 2006.
Hammam magic
Usually oriental baths are two or three halls with different temperatures. The cool room is used for relaxation, followed by the warm and hot rooms. The latter (a tiled wet steam room with a warm stone-lounger in the center, benches near the walls and cold water taps), in fact, is a hammam. Men and women in the East bathe separately. In the life of the women of the Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania) and the Arab East, the bathhouse plays the same role as the coffee house in the lives of men. And even more: communication in the hammam is perfectly combined with beauty treatments.
Miscellaneous principles
The dry heat of the sauna causes increased sweating: evaporating from the surface of the body, water protects it from overheating, along with sweat, excess salts, urea and various harmful acids are removed from the body. Hammam works on a different principle: moisture-saturated air prevents sweat from evaporating, so the body’s thermoregulation mechanism does not turn on. Moist steam softens the top layer of the skin, and dead cells of the epidermis are easily removed. After the hammam, we literally radiate beauty. When you need to cheer up, it is better to choose a sauna. And the best option is to alternate sauna and hammam: you will always be full of energy and satisfied with your appearance.
Before entering the hammam, along with clothes, you need to leave all worries and everyday affairs. “Hammam from the first minute of being in it is pure pleasure,” says Zhanna, 31, who recently returned from Tunisia. “It’s a pity that this tradition is not widespread in Russia.” Real oriental baths with the structure of ancient Roman baths are really a rarity here. “But in terms of the level of services and the quality of hammams, Russia does not lag behind world standards,” says Marina Kuchurkina, director of the National Spa Industry Guild. Another question is that for us a hammam is more of an element of a wellness program than a place for meetings and communication.
In the East, it is customary to start with a half-hour of relaxation on the stone benches of a warm hall, and women use this time to epilate and dye their hair. We are in a hurry to the hot room with almost 100 percent humidity. In order for the body to adapt to such conditions, for the first time you should not stay in the steam room for more than 5 minutes. They don’t talk in the hammam. “Here you lose the idea of time, concentrate on inner feelings and forget about the outside world,” confirms 37-year-old Maria, a fan of the oriental bath. – I do not like to come to the hammam in a big company, as is customary in a Russian steam room. I want to make this space personal.”
Meanwhile, the steam does its job, warming up the body and opening its pores. Massage with a rough mitten will remove dead particles from the skin – this procedure slightly tones up, as it increases the flow of oxygen to the heart, activates blood circulation. Then the body is lathered (ideally with “black” soap from an oily solution of salts and crushed olives) and rinsed with water. The skin becomes clean and soft, like a baby’s.
Many people notice that while cleansing the body, the hammam at the same time pacifies the soul. The French writer Theophile Gauthier, having visited the Constantinople hammam in the summer of 1852, wrote in his Journey to the East: “There was no trace of fatigue, and, leaving, I felt so cheerful, light and fresh,“ as if the angels were with me walked side by side.”
————————————————* Theophile Gauthier Journey to the East. Publishing house. Sabashnikov, 2000.
Sauna inspiration
Other countries, other customs. And other purposes of the bathing ritual. “Sauna is like a hard job for me,” admits Irina, 40 years old. – I enter the steam room, prepared in advance for the tests: it’s hot, my heart is beating fast. But then, after a pool or a cool shower, comes liberation and pleasure.” For two thousand years of its history, the Finnish sauna has not changed much. Today it is one of the national symbols: there are approximately 5 million saunas for 1,5 million people in Finland.
To fully experience the effect of the Finnish bath, you need to create the right balance of temperature and humidity. Ideally, if the sum of these two parameters (in degrees and percentages, respectively) is between 110 and 150**. The usual temperature in a wood-lined steam room is 80–100°C. It remains to adjust the second indicator – humidity (more precisely, dryness) of the air. This is necessary for the body to endure the unusual heat without loss. Hardened Finns can withstand high temperatures with a humidity of about 10%. In the Russian version of the sauna, the temperature is lower, and the humidity, respectively, is higher.
Russian formula
In a Russian bath, temperature and humidity should be approximately the same and not too high (70–80 ° C with humidity up to 70%). “The Russian bath is more versatile than a sauna or a hammam,” explains Dr. Loder Olga Yakovleva. – It helps to cope with stress, fatigue and at the same time improve skin condition. It is not necessary to perceive the bath as a rest after a workout. The bath itself is an independent and rather intense work for the body, so you should not overstrain yourself by combining a steam room with aerobics or on simulators. The effect of exposure to hot steam can be enhanced with a natural scrub made from salt, honey and lemon. Salt in this mixture acts as an abrasive component and at the same time draws out excess fluid, honey nourishes and moisturizes, and lemon serves as a source of vitamins, helps open pores and whitens the skin.
In both Russian and Finnish traditions, the bath day is Saturday. They usually go to the sauna in the evening, certainly before dinner. The entire session lasts about an hour and a half.
“The ritual begins with a rather hot shower, after which you need to thoroughly dry yourself with a towel,” says Dr. Loder Olga Yakovleva. – This is necessary to warm up the body and stimulate the nerve endings of the skin. Now go to the steam room and stay there for 8-15 minutes, depending on how you feel. Lie down or sit so that the feet are on the same level with the buttocks; try to relax as much as possible, do not talk and, of course, do not read. When you leave, rinse with warm water. After resting, you can return to the steam room, but not longer than 15 minutes. After that, the shower should be colder, and the rest longer. If you want to enter the sauna for the third time, make sure that you have really recovered from the previous entry. The final shower should be cold: body temperature usually rises by 1-2°C by this point, and the body needs help to return to normal. In addition, cold water tones up, speeding up metabolic processes.
“At first I was a little afraid of sharp contrasts,” admits Igor, 35, who discovered the sauna while on holiday in Finland, “but quickly appreciated the magical state of cleanliness and renewal that this bath gives.”
Sauna is the perfect way to detoxify the body. The trained body of a Finnish bath lover loses up to a liter of liquid with sweat during a session – three times more than it evaporates from the surface of the skin in a day. Approximately 580 calories are consumed per session, add to this another hundred calories, which are spent when dousing or immersing in cold water. Sauna protects the body from winter colds and joint diseases, helps to recover from training and sports injuries.
There are few contraindications: heart disease, acute infectious diseases, high fever, high blood pressure.
By following all the rules, you can be sure that the sauna will bring cheerfulness, energy and will allow you to fearlessly treat any whims of our climate.
————————————————** SPA Report, 2005, № 2.