In a classification of Russian stereotypes, the banya would not only occupy one of the first positions, but it could also bring together almost all the rest: a universe of intimacy and community, of tea and vodka, of snow and steam... that chiaroscuro spirituality and, in short, this bipolar world that goes from the Baltic to the Pacific.
The cinema is a good example. scenes of great banquets, of twinning, of hedonism or of murders they are repeated between the slippery tiles, the dense smoke and the fragility of the naked bodies. Arnold Schwarzenegger pummeling Manchurians in Read Heat or Viggo Mortensen stabbed (and stabbed) in Eastern Promises are some of the most disgusting examples in Western cinema.
Imposing interior of Banya Sanduny.
Russian studios multiply that caricature of filthy lust in films like Brat (Brother) or take us to the bucolic in Irony of Destiny or in A few days in the life of Oblomov. The interior of these settings, as gloomy as it is delicate, lends itself to highlighting the Russian world's tendency to exaggeration; hence the banya also ends up resounding as the maximum expression of that honest poverty of The House of the Dead or of the unpleasant opulence of Aleksei Balabanov's cinema.
BANYA SANDUNY
And even if one is informed or knows enough about Russia to get rid of those prejudices, before the charismatic entrance of the Banya Sanduny, in the center of Moscow, he fears that they will come true. The original facades maintain the elegance with which Sila Sandunov had them built in 1808, as the largest public bath in Moscow.
However, the dressing room in the men's section shows the features of the Mauritanian style under which it was remodeled in 1896. Then, with a more ambitious vision, a couple of millionaires acquired it to transform it into the quintessential Russian banya with the help of the Viennese architect Boris Freidenberg.
inside is like a direct gateway to the eclectic luxury of St. Petersburg: the baroque, renaissance and gothic are aligned to reinforce the perennial idea of Moscow as a Third Rome.
The decoration at Banya Sanduny is rich and ostentatious.
Despite collectivization in 1918 (when it became State Banya No. 1), its interiors kept allusions to Arab architecture and classical art, that guide us through corridors that flirt with kitsch to lead us to the most striking part, the main room of the men's section: a spacious hall covered with wooden panels carved in the Gothic style, which rather resemble a medieval sanctuary.
Small private booths are embedded in this spectacular altarpiece as confessionals and the light filters through the translucent stained glass windows from the top.
Main room of the men's section.
NUDE AND WITH WOOL CAP
From here on, I stop playing the expert, because for the beginner, each step in the banya is a step towards bewilderment: in this kind of temple, some tables with high-backed sofas share the space perfumed by a whiff of food, occupied by completely naked men eating smoked cheese and drinking tea and beer.
A waiter deposits me there so that I can also undress. More than shyness I'm self-conscious that another person eats a Jachapuri (kind of Georgian pie) a couple of meters away. But, anyway, if he doesn't care, so do I.
Suddenly, we are all the same. It is this nudity that makes a society with such marked hierarchies as the Russian one forget about status. The role of the banya is to transcend: politics, spirituality, identity and community spread through these benches amid murmurs, some laughter and penetrating glances. Around me I see a couple of students, a business meeting, two other men joking around.
Detail of the water area.
The solemnity of the installation contrasts with the daily life reflected by its employees and visitors. As residential buildings added showers and bathtubs, the banya evolves from the purely hygienic to a type of establishment with different treatments and that serves as meeting point.
In fact, for many of the visitors, this bathroom means a routine, two hours a week in that they coincide with other regular customers. In the first room, they eat, drink and wander, disconnected from the life of scarves, long coats and traffic jams on the other side of the facade.
Only me, lonely and with erratic movements, I give myself away like the alien that I am, not knowing what to do or where to go at any time. It is as if he does not stop committing protocol errors; and that until now I only had to undress, sit down and drink tea with lemon. Things get complicated in the second part. Who wears a bathrobe, takes it off and decorates his nakedness with the kolpak, a pointed wool hat.
The impressive swimming pool.
I open the door and a cast of big bellies and broad backs he walks through an area of showers and cold water pools holding a few twigs (veniki) in his hands, like caricatures from a Boticelli painting. They are getting ready to enter one of the two heat chambers, that give off a strong odor birch and mint.
IN OWN MEAT
On the left is the Finnish type sauna, dry (5% humidity) and about 90 degrees. On the right, the Russian banya itself, with a much higher humidity and not exceeding 75 degrees. Both, covered in wood, are structured around two large pottery kilns, which are frequently fed by an employee. Here the branches and the hats are making sense.
As soon as they start to sweat and their body takes on the hue of the Kremlin walls, visitors use the veniki to hit your back and legs with the parsimony of a cow that shoos away flies with its tail. Someone sticks harder, with a suffering face. The kolpak, perched on the face and neck like the hood of death, prevents birch leaves from hitting eyes and hair from burning when in contact with surfaces.
Buckets for body treatments.
For those of us who are serious, a professional "poker" lays us down on a bench (for the scrupulous: people sit on towels) and starts a session that I know is not sadomaso because that is how they clarify it for me beforehand. Looking at the ground, I imagine how the man licks his lips with pleasure with each blow he gives me on the back, in the feet, in the arms, how it increases strength and rhythm.
I am convinced that he is not a hazer seeing how some Russians go through the same thing in other banks. He presses the branches on my shoulder blades and kidneys And then, when he asks me to breathe, the smell of mint and birch not only enters my lungs, but every pore of my body. Steam and moisture run through me from within. The process, called párennie, is extremely technical and seeks to open the pores and stimulate breathing with its irregular rhythm.
It's time to take a cold water bath, very cold, and repeat the same on your back and sitting down. In total, about twenty minutes in which uncertainty and vulnerability prevent me from relaxing and after which I feel like a KFC chicken wing in batter. Once fried, I go back to the cold water and my image in the mirror scares me more than usual: the bruised skin is criss-crossed with red scratches and birch leaf patterns, swollen from the heat.
Beautiful color on the stairs of Banya Sanduny.
Now they advise me to hydrate and drink tea before repeating the process (this time without stops). And so I do it to end up discovering the jewel in the crown: the pool that hides behind an almost clandestine little door. The monumentality of the entire enclosure is concentrated around the water, in silence, almost empty, and pearled by the flashes of dim light that enters from the outside, where one of the first snowfalls of autumn falls.
Bathing in this warm water helps stabilize tension. They all end with a thorough shower, removing toxins from the skin with cloths. The open windows bring us the sharp breaths of the Moscow sunset, which is already waiting on the street.
Lockers in Banya Sanduny.