VASKINIEMI
sauna establishment of the Finnish Sauna Society, in Helsinki.There are five genuine saunas heated with the firewood, three smoke saunas and two later types of saunas with chimney. You can go straight from the sauna to swim in the sea.
Popularity: 42% [?]
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THE BEST OF IN A WORLD OF SAUNA
The sauna ['sɔ:nə] or ['saʊnə], Finish ['sɑunɑ] is a Finnish style, wooden sweat bath, heated by a stone-filled stove to 80ºC - 110ºC. The walls and the ceiling in any Finnish sauna are always wood, either logs or boards or wood paneling. The heart of the sauna is a pile of heated rocks surrounded by sauna bathers. Water is thrown over the hot rocks, air-humidity is increased and a steam known as löyly is produced. The temperature is high enough for a body to start to perspire. The idea behind this sweat bathing process is in the cleaning body of impurities, as well as it is in mental and physical relaxation. Sauna is a place where you rest from a hard day, relax your body and mind, and refresh yourself by enjoying the benefits of the heat.
Popularity: 17% [?]
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TRADITIONS AND OLD BELIEFS
The sauna is an ancient custom and almost a sacred place (particularly for the Finns). Tradition related to Finnish sauna is rich and diversified. It was not a place just for sweat bathing. It is associated with the peoples’ lives in all their stages. Traditionally, Finnish women gave birth in sauna. Folk healers were curing the patients in the sauna. Furthermore, it was the place where the bodies of the dead were washed and prepared for their final journey.
Place for a magic
Sauna was also a place where magic was performed and casting love spells could also happen there. It was often performed on young women to improve their marriage ability, with special sauna bath: birch whisks hanging, special herbs aroma in the air and the love spells of the magician woman. Sauna had an important role in “healing” of love affairs through magic.
Old beliefs and customs
Gnome
It was believed that little sauna elf, called gnome lived in a sauna. He was treated with respect, because he might cause troubles for people and “punish” them if acting “immorally” in the sauna. As sauna was the place where gnome was living, people used to warm up the sauna occasionally just for him. Another customary was to leave some food outside the sauna for that little elf.
Christmas sauna
There is an old custom referring to Christmas and sauna, which represents the old tradition of many Finnish peasant families. They started heating sauna two days before Christmas so everybody could take sauna bathing before the sun set at Christmas Eve. Why? There are two different versions of the tale… In the first one, once the darkness set in, the sauna is used by the invisible folks who are previous inhabitants of the house. Others believed that the invisible visitors were sauna elfs who brought a good fortune to the house.
New Year
“In Koivisto on the
(“Sauna – A Finnish national institution”, Erkki Helamaa, architect, Professor emeritus and Juha Pentikäinen, Professor,
Different functions of sauna in the past
In
Popularity: 31% [?]
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Wet steam bath (”Turkish” sauna)
Wet steam bath is different from Finnish sauna, seats are made of ceramics and it is a rule to enter it completely naked. The temperature in steam sauna is much lower then in Finnish (dry) one; it is around 45ºC. The main particularity of these baths is high air humidity which is 100%. The heated steam is released to the sauna with the addition of essential oils creating pleasant aroma and additional health benefits. The main benefits of this sauna are in the revitalization of respiratory system. Furthermore, high humidity with a mild temperature opens the skin pores, cleans the impurities from the epidermis and beneficially affects the skin. Finally, steam sauna will relax your muscles and body in general. Steam sauna today is an integral part of almost every wellness and sauna centre, or thermal baths and SPAs in
Extra supplements and where you can try it
We recommend you to visit steam saunas in “Sauna land” in a Water park Atlantis, in
Popularity: 99% [?]
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Infrared sauna
Infrared sauna is a kind of Finnish sauna, but using the special infrared heater instead of “classical” sauna stove, which heats your body by generating the far infrared radiation rays, similar to those produced by sun. This kind of radiation is beneficial for the general health. Bathing in infrared saunas is completely different then in “regular” ones, the temperature is much lower (50 to 60ºC), but you still sweat same as in Finnish sauna. Infrared sauna dehydrates you, so it is recommended to drink plenty of fluids before and during the sweat bathing. Bathing in infrared sauna has many health benefits: cosmetic benefits for the skin – it kills acne, relief pain in the muscles, improving metabolism and blood circulation, helps with the faster recovery from injuries…and other similar benefits as all the sweat baths in general.
You can visit infrared saunas almost everywhere – mainly in sport and recreational centres, public swimming pools, SPAs and sometimes even in beauty centers.
Popularity: 47% [?]
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Russian banya
Banya [баня] is a traditional Russian steam bath, with the lower temperature and higher humidity then Finnish sauna. In the banya there are three rooms: entrance room, steam room and a washing room. In the entrance room you can leave your clothes and rest on the benches. In the washing room you can find a tap of very hot water, usually heated on the stove of the steam room, and a tap for cold water for mixing the water at a comfortable temperature. This room is the final phase of sweat bathing in banya, where one washes himself after the whole process. In the steam room [парилка] there is a wooden stove which produces the heat, with the bucket of water beside it used for pouring the stones in the stove, and the wooden benches across to seat on. The process of bathing is very similar to that in Finnish sauna.
Types of banya
There were two different kinds of banya: black and white. Black banyas represent a certain equivalent to Finnish smoke sauna, where the smoke is led out through the hole in the ceiling, and the smoke darkens the interior of the room. White banyas refer to Russian „urban baths“ in the cities. They all have the stone stoves with the tank to heat the water, temperature is low and humidity is high, thus it is thought of as a „classical“ steam bath.
„Banya process“
After the first round of sweating follows cooling off in a breeze outdoor, in a lake or a river, or just by splashing with the cold water. After each round of sweating, a cycle of cooling off and relaxing is repeated, often accompanied with refreshment, a light beer or a tea. Sometimes already in the second round of sweating, and mainly in the third, bathers use venik [веник] for gentle beating of the body, same as bathers in Finnish sauna do. It is a whisk made of bunches of dried branches and leaves of suitable, leafy trees, mainly the white birch.
Today, commercial banyas often have just a steam room and a dry room, dependently on the level of their standard.
Popularity: 21% [?]
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TYPES OF SWEAT BATHS
[lang_enBy sweat baths we understand the exposure of the body to a high temperature for enough of time to cause the body starting perspire. There are many various types of sweat baths throughout the world, in one form or another. In this section you will reveal the main characteristics of the Russian banya, Japanese o-furo, steam (Turkish) sauna, infra-red sauna…and some other modern “derivatives” of Finnish and steam saunas existing today in sauna centers around the world.
Popularity: 8% [?]
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SAUNA WISEACRE
Sauna
Finnish style sweat bath / “building” for Finnish sweat bathing. The correct pronunciation is sow-na, as it is in a word “cow”, not saw-na.
Saunoa is action of bathing in sauna, and saunoja is a person bathing in sauna.
Savusauna is Finnish name for smoke sauna.
Avantouinti
Swimming in a hole in the ice covering the lake or the sea (literally – “ice hole swimming”). Sauna bathers often cut a large hole through the ice and plunge quickly or swim for a few minutes, for refreshment after, or in between sweat baths. It makes them feel refreshed and most of them appreciate the hot sauna after the cool swimming in the icy water. It is recommended to go to the Avanto (hole in the ice) not directly from the sauna heat, but after the short time in the changing room, where there is a relative coolness unlike the sauna.
Kauha (kippo)
Ladle for throwing water on the stones in the stove
Kiuas
Sauna stove, heater of the sauna. It is heated with wood or electricity, and has stones on the top for increased heating capacity and producing löyly. Originally, kiuas was just a pile of stones around a fire, making heating process very slow. In smoke saunas, stoves did not have the chimney, thus the smoke was cleared from room usually through the doors or lakeinen, just before bathing. Today, most heaters are designed in a steel casing. A wood heated kiuas is thought to give more pleasant warmth and löyly.
Kiuaskivet
Stones in the sauna stove. The more there are stones; the better is the heat the stove produces.
Kiulu
Small bucket usually made of wood, for keeping the löyly water.
Kisu, kitku (tiku)
Unpleasant smoke which arise in smoke sauna, right after the heating. It disappears after one or two hours. Just afterwards the sauna is ready.
Lakeinen
Opening in the roof of a smoke sauna where smoke escapes during the bathing.
Lauteet
Elevated wooden platforms in the sauna for people to sit on (high benches). As the hot air rises on the lauteet bather can enjoy the hotter air close to the ceiling.
Löyly
Steam (vapor) created by throwing water on the hot stones. It is hot and rises up the temperature in the sauna temporarily. As water carries heat more efficiently then the air, the change is felt instantly. The word löyly is sometimes used for the heat, humidity and temperature in the sauna in general.
Löylyhuone is the hot room.
Pesuhone
The washing room
Pukuhone
The dressing room
Räppänä
Duct or vent on a sauna wall close to the ceiling.
Saunatonttu
Literally translated it would mean a sauna elf. It is a little gnome that was believed to live in the sauna.
Vihta, vasta
Whisk made of birch twigs, used for gentle beating of the body in sauna, in order to stimulate the feeling of löyly and improve the blood circulation. In countries where the birch is hard to find, people use similar trees rich in leafs (cedar, poplar…).
Popularity: 21% [?]
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The history of the Finnish sauna
Ground sauna
After that first form, ground sauna evolved in a type if improved ground sauna, with the beams-supported roof and a real door, oftentimes even with the whole front wall made of logs.
Smoke sauna original stove was a pile of rocks. This “rock-stove” and process of heating demanded more effort and skills then in it does in modern Finnish sauna. The most important was the “slow” attitude. That skill of slow heating process in smoke sauna was passed on from one generation to another. Proper preparation of smoke sauna demanded lots of effort and time. Wood had to be chopped up, the fire had to be extinct and smoke filtrated out of the room.
Process of bathing in smoke sauna
A process itself begins with putting the fire in the stove, which heats the stones on top of it. Just after, the smoke from the burning woods was circulating the room before being vented out of the sauna, usually through some cracks in the roof, or through the doors left open shortly after the heating process. After the sauna being ventilated, the door was closed and the bathing could start. It is important to know here that the soot from the smoke is not “dirt” and furthermore, it leaves a pleasant aroma in the sauna. Normally, before bathing process, benches and floor were being cleaned.
THE TRADITIONAL SMOKE SAUNA IS HIGHLY VALUED BY THE REAL SAUNA GOERS AS A BEST FORM OF SAUNA, PROVIDING THE HIGHEST QUALITY SAUNA EXPERIENCE.
If you wish to experience this genuine sauna, you can try it at the Vaskiniemi, sauna establishment of the Finnish Sauna Society in
Sauna with chimney – beginning of the evolution
At the beginning of the 19th century, the sauna with chimney was revealed and as such it marked a beginning of the important evolution in the history of sauna stoves. The stones in the stove have been covered with the cone-shaped metal top finishing with the flue, leading through the roof as a chimney. At the top part of this metal cover there were the doors, used for controlling the temperature in the sauna (open/closed) and also for throwing the water over the stones.
In the 1930’s, a new kind of sauna stove was invented – stove for continuous heating. The stones here were isolated from the fire. The main advantage of this stove was the possibility to keep the fire burning continuously while using the sauna, while the intensity of the fire regulates the temperature in the room. The stones are in separate parts of the stove, next to the fire, but isolated from it, enabled to stay hot and produce the steam as well as the fire is burning.
Electrical stove – the revolution in Finnish saunas
The final stage of the sauna development was the invention of the electrical stove, the major innovation in the history of Finnish sauna. Here, instead of putting the fire, the electric resistors heat up the stones. The size of the stove must not be neglected; it should be large enough to put many stones in it. The more stones is put, water thrown on them will produce the more enjoyable löyly.
Sauna in
Although there are many types of sweating houses or saunas throughout the world, the Finns are however the most specific sauna users. They have kept their old sauna traditions and adjusted them to today’s modern life. It can be said for sure that they, as conservers, developers and mediators, have spread the Finnish sauna all around the world.
Today, almost every Finn goes to the sauna at least once a week. The saunas can be found everywhere, in private apartments and houses; and numerous families have their sauna cottage near the lake or the see. Sauna is unavoidable in sport centers, hotels, tourist resorts…and even in camping sites. Often it is an integral part of corporate headquarters and enterprises. Even the Parliament house in
The only sauna almost disappeared is a public sauna in the town, but it is to understand this since nearly everybody has its own private sauna.
The Finnish saunas are today are spread throughout the whole world and its benefits are widely recognized. Sauna bathing is very common in
Popularity: 24% [?]
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HISTORY OF THE SAUNA AND OTHER SWEAT LODGES
Sauna has existed for thousands of years, in numerous different forms, all over the world. The first notions about the sweat baths similar to saunas date back even from the Stone Age, some 6000 years ago. Furthermore, there are some beliefs that saunas existed in a year 6000 BC. In fact, there are some written records found, dating back from that period, where Herodotus described “how some tribes rolled hot stones into small tents, where they went to sweat”. Regardless of the accuracy of the time data, we can still say that our ancestors revealed the pleasure of sauna ages ago.
For the Finns it is likely to believe that they have sauna already for two thousand years in spite of existing evidences dating back just about the half of this time. Still, the Finnish sauna was not the only sweat “house”, but the sweat baths in various forms infiltrated in the cultures throughout the world.
Popularity: 10% [?]
