Letter from Russia

Moscow. Intense cold. When I blink, my eye-lashes feel crunchy as if they might be on the cusp of freezing. I am on my way to the Sanduny Baths, “the Tsar of all banya,” first opened in 1808 and frequented by Alexander Pushkin and John Travolta alike. Also Naomi Campbell. Also members of the KGB, which is around the corner in one direction, and the Bolshoi, which is round the corner the other.

I am here on the recommendation of Tima, an Uzbek madman of my acquaintance. His idea is that I use my free time in the taking of the treatments—icy plunge pools, searing steam rooms, showers, baths, dips and swims followed by the great Russian tradition of being briskly birched by a naked stranger. In this way, Tima believes, I will renew myself and come to better understand the Russian soul.

I bid farewell to Freud, Jung, Lacan and the gang at the door. (I have a suspicion Sanduny is no place for psychoanalysis.) And I climb the marble stairs—pillars, opulent frescoes, Greco-Roman statues. Then, through double doors, I behold the great chamber of pre- and post-banya relaxation.

I hesitate on the threshold. Imagine the most lavishly appointed private chapel of the most florin-squandering cardinal in history and then cross this with the maddest of Mad Ludwig of Bavaria’s banqueting halls. Imagine a distant ceiling that is bedecked in high gothic wood panelling, intricately carved, ornately flourished. Imagine row upon row of tall straight-backed dark leather benches such as you might find in the first-class carriage of the Moscow-St Petersburg railway circa 1880. Then people this picture with men (for the most part fatter than need be) sitting about the place eating, say, fried lamb’s tongue—all of them entirely naked save for these tall conical hats of the type oddly favoured by the rural Vietnamese. This is the scene before me.

Sanduny is a must for any would-be Muscovite. Various aristocrats have owned it, lost it (at cards) and rebuilt it. The current design was completed in 1896 when purified water was transported to the steam rooms from the Moskva River. Men and women are segregated but the Russian banya doesn’t suffer from seediness and stigma of whatever might be the equivalent in the UK; the banyas are places where people can strip down existentially as well as bodily. Or rest. Or discuss business affairs. Or love affairs. Or eat blini. And although Sanduny has a proud gallery of famous politicians, dancers, actors, and hockey-players among its clientele, “everyone is equal in the banya” as the saying goes.

I enter the vast bathing chambers. Now I, too, am wearing my felt Viet Cong “hair protection.” I steam. I shower. I swim in the Palladian pool. I eye the icy plunge tubs. At some point, I am supposed to immerse myself; but the giant wooden pails are situated beneath an open window through which a Siberian winter is already whispering its savage intent. I cannot tell you how cold the water is. I can’t dip much beyond my wrist and my fingers look blue even as I do.

But now the time has come. On a marble slab lie the many birch branches. Some are soaking in buckets. They look like those bunches of giant parsley you get at green grocers—but more twiggy, more branchy. A narrow-eyed man makes a fastidious selection, slaps the birch around his back as if to test its pliancy. I do the same and follow him.

Neither can I tell you how hot it is in the steam room. There’s a mighty brick oven at least two metres high and some red-eyed veteran of the infernal regions is throwing water onto the coals creating a lethal vapour that hisses like a bannik. (In Russian mythology, the bannik is the clawed spirit of the banya; he sees the future; sometimes he strokes you, sometimes he strikes you.) All around are tiered benches, each level hotter than the last. Men roost in their conical hats, too hot to talk, or move, or be.

A figure approaches in the murk. I don’t know why. He takes my birch. I don’t know why. He indicates that we climb up to the highest bench. He’s nodding—to me or to himself, I cannot be sure. The steam up here is dense and kettle-hot. We’re both squinting and grimacing. He gestures with the birch. I lie down on the bench on my front.

It’s soft and almost tickly at first. The idea is that the agitation of the leaves improves circulation but surely my circulation has never needed improving less. The heat is a physical presence—crushing. He picks up my legs and starts on the soles of my feet. Then he rests the birch against my back.

Now he’s definitely whacking me. Pretty hard. And it’s definitely hurting—but strangely not where the hits fall—more where the leaves curl and whiplash over my side. I can hear him gasping like a boxer. This exertion is said to be as beneficial to the bircher as to the birchee. I’m trying not to drown and not to think about the underlying psychology of what is happening here. Why are we doing this, brother? Why do humans gather thus? WTF? Steam. Darkness. Mother Russia. Wombs. Is it a coincidence that the word “machismo” makes disguised appearence in the word “sadomasochism.” The Russian soul. Bare-chested leaders. Why? Be gone Freud, be gone.

The heat is suffocating. To breathe is almost to drink. I glance up. In the distance the other roosters are vague shapes in the steam. Corpulent self-basting vampires. I am afraid I am going to pass out from the heat. The bannik hisses. Scalding vapours rise anew. But somehow I know I am not going to be the one to end it. I might be weaker, but I can outlast, I can endure. There is Russian in my blood, too.

He is exhausted. He is stopping. I try to get up. We are wet as otters in a tsunami. I’m covered in leaves. The floor scalds the soles of my feet. I stagger blind and scorched towards the exit. And now, at last, the ice pools make sense! Yes. In I plunge. My consciousness wallows and I enter the dream state of the all but dead.

Later, when I leave, I feel glad to be alive. And maybe that’s the banya’s secret, I’m thinking: that it reminds you of your body, your mortality. On the street, the wind from the east is bone-gratingly bitter. And already I’m yearning to be back in there. Or maybe the historic popularity of the Russian banya is nothing psychological at all, but simply a way of escaping the cold.