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Espoon Lähderannassa 7. helmikuuta,
Armon Vuonna 2001

Hello Pekka...

Thank you for your story about the Finnish Sauna. I got the letter of your ideas from Sirpa just after Christmas.

This weekend was the so-called “Nuutinpäivä” which means that the Christmas is walking out. The Christmas three was carried out and all the decorations were packed away to wait for the next Christmas. Now I can concentrate in more “important” things”!

I read your story and “meditation” about the Finnish Sauna and your tender remembering of your childhood’s Saunabath ritual. I think that remembering is the best proof of what “Sauna” really means for you and all of us, Finns.

You asked me if I had any comments on your ideas! I think we all have our own remembering of good sauna as well as of bad ones. As we all know “Sauna” includes a wide variety of cultural as well as philosophical rituals, which can hardly be described in a letter. We remember with warm feelings the simple rural saunas, small log buildings by the lakeside with big stoves and minimum light. The urban saunas with fast heated electrical stoves and bright lights are for the modern stressed urban people some sort of substitute to those simple rural saunas. And then we have the so called “business saunas”... They have philosophically nothing to do with the “Original Sauna”. They rather are an expression of our modern hasty “business lifestyle” and the needs to be relaxed.

The original “Sauna”, the simple rural log building, was more than just everyday way to take care of our personal hygiene. “Sauna” was and still is a “Holly place” where Finns were born, where families gathered on Saturday evenings to wash and relax for the day of rest, the Sabbath, after the week of hard work. It was far from the “saunas” which we nowadays meet in obscure side- or back streets of big cities.

Sauna is not just a simple room or a separate building. If you try to describe the “Sauna” you find that you rather have to describe the ritual experience or a whole philosophy called “Sauna”.

“Sauna” was a place of silence and perhaps even of some mystery. The whole family was silently sitting in the small sauna room on simple wooden benches high up under the dark ceiling. Just a small candle or tiny lamp gave a modest light to just the very lowest bench. Even in summertime the small room was mysterious because in the original “Sauna” there was only a tiny window of some square inches to give daylight. The twilight emphasized the mystery of “Sauna”.

The stove used to be a big metal cylinder filled with stones. On the top of the stove there was a small round opening with a cover which was opened when the family had climbed up on the benches and started the sauna ritual.

The heat streamed slowly to the top of the small room. Now and then the father of the family poured just a wooden ladle full of water onto the hot stove stones. In a moment you heard a soft whizz deep in the stove and gradually you were surrounded with warm gentle damp steam stroking tenderly on your body and making you to sweat. Up there you were sitting and enjoying the feeling of how the skin pores were opening and the sweat started to flow along your skin.

The “vihta” made in summertime of fresh green birch twigs gave the whole “sauna” a sweet fresh smell and when you tenderly beat allover your body... you got a rosy fresh and smooth skin. You could feel... nearly hear your blood circulation burst.

The preparing of these birch “vihta’s” was a part of the whole preparation of the “saunabath”. For winters families made during the early summer these “vihta’s” and dried them in sunshine to be then used during the long winter.

But let’s go back to “sauna” benches. After having enjoyed a few moments of the warm “löyly”, smooth warm steam when pouring more water on stoves stones, you climbed down and run out and jumped into the refreshing lake water or clean white snowdrift. And then again up to the sauna bench. You repeated this as many times as you enjoyed it.

When the steambath - the “löyly” ritual - was over the parents washed the small children down on the floor level which the heat and steam did not reach. When this often a noisy part of the ritual was over and children dressed in the pyjamas, parents could continue together in silence their own pleasure of the “Sauna”. “Sauna” was also the place to discuss all the important family affairs.

During the washing and cleaning ritual the small cover on the top of stove was closed so that the heat did not flee away from the stove. In a properly heated Sauna you could have even another bath the next morning if you so liked.

The proper way to finish your bath was to pour cold water over your soft, smooth and clean skin or have a refreshing swim in order to have the skin pores closed. After all that wonderful ritual you could hardly describe your heavenly light feeling in your body!

After the enjoyable feeling of the steam bath you could continue and even complete this wonderful feeling with a mug of cool drink and then throw down on a modest bench... draw a white clean blanket over yourself and just fall down in your dreams and... yes perhaps take a little nap! We Finns cannot afford our self anything better than this relaxing “saunabath”!

We hope you have a chance to share this wonderful feeling with us!

Kai

 

 

Kai Uotila is my family friend from Finland.
His attached letter with brilliant sauna “vinjets”
describes for us profoundly the Finnish Sauna.

Sauna Pekka