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Moscow roof sauna

April 26, 2013 By Glenn Leave a Comment

Who wouldn’t want to partake in this sauna?

© Courtesy of Artplay

Moscow roof sauna opening at Artplay

by Nathan Gray at 19/04/2013 18:56

A summer day in the banya may be redundant, as Moscow in the summer sometimes feels like a giant banya itself, if not quite as aromatic and relaxing.

Still, from April 27, Artplay will be playing host to the Steamer, a mini-banya on the rooftop of building 9, next to the railroad tracks from Kursky Station.

The location has inspired the design, said Oleg Nikolayev, the owner and operator of the banya. The break area on one side of the small building is designed like a coupe cabin in a long-distance Russian train, and the building itself resembles a steam locomotive’s engine. Wi-fi, that staple of modern life, is available, too.

The interior is almost completely made of wood, which is coated to protect the surface from humidity. The banya has three sections: the break area; the entrance hall, complete with a shower for when you leave the sauna itself; and the sauna, where temperatures can reach as high as 110 degrees.

Nikolayev said, however, that Russian saunas tend to have a lower temperature than their Finnish counterparts, due to their more humid environment - about 80 degrees. He recommended not spending more than 10 minutes in the sauna room, and will supply an hourglass to indicate the time to the users. Scented oils, including orange, mint and cedar, can be added to the water poured on the coals.

A 90-minute session will be 2,000 rubles, and the facility has a maximum capacity of six. Be sure to bring your own towels, though slippers are available should you need them. There are no separate changing facilities, but the break room can be pressed into service.

Reservations can be made through the Facebook group Steamer @ Artplay. For the time being, access to the roof is limited, but once Artplay has completed additional facilities - including a cafe and rooftop deck next to the banya - it will be fully accessible, and you will be able to mingle with a larger crowd once you’re done steaming.

 

 

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On the Homestead: Sauna, store and stage — it’s a multi-tasking structure

March 16, 2013 By Glenn Leave a Comment

Article from this week’s National Post, a Canadian publication.  Link to article here.

Diane Doiron | 13/03/15 3:51 PM ET 

 

Diane Doiron
Saunas have been around for millennia and are known for the relaxing, purifying and healing effects they have on the body. We have been using our sauna for the past four winters and are looking forward to many years of being able to soothe our aching bodies after the hard physical work on the farm. 

We are lucky enough to have one, and it’s mostly thanks to someone else’s castoffs. It’s true that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure! A few years ago, Lea (who is a real estate agent) sold a property to clients who were planning some renovations on their new purchase. They wanted to remove some 1×6 cedar tongue-and-groove lumber to put up drywall. Lea jumped at the opportunity to assist them and carefully dismantled the precious walls, and took her time pulling out nails before loading the material on the truck. Heading back home with a smile on her face, she dreamed of one day building a sauna on the Hill.

Diane Doiron 

Diane Doiron

On another trip to town, she found a wood stove dumped at the side of the road with a sign reading “Free.” In order to be able to load it on the truck by herself, she lightened its weight by removing the door and taking the firebricks out one by one.  It’s always nice to have the materials ready for the next job on the list; the challenge then was to find the time to renovate the 130-year-old Milk House into the sauna.

Four years ago, we had two very young and energetic Wwoofers (volunteer farm workers), Sarah and Krissi, who were from Germany. Those girls learned how to measure, cut and nail up walls that summer. The result is a multi-function space now known as the Zen Zone.

The deck outside the sauna has been used as a stage for impromptu musical performances, but mostly just for lounging and having a beer on a hot summer’s day. In the winter, it’s the launching pad for steamy bodies running out of the sauna in search of a little cooling snow (or at least cool air) to run around in.

Diane Doiron 

Diane Doiron

The sauna building is a multi-functioning space; during the summer months, we use the front room of it as our “general store,” where we sell the preserves and soaps we make through the year, as well as some of our photography.

The sauna itself is 5×12-feet, with benches that seat four comfortably. The wood stove is loaded from outside the building so that smoke doesn’t interfere with the relaxing steam. We have rocks on top of the stove and a bucket of water — or sometimes the bucket is full of snow.

I’ve just been told the sauna is ready … got to go!

 

EDITOR NOTES:

  1. Love the recycled DIY nature of this sauna build.
  2. Photo #1 reveals no foil bubble wrap of foil wrap vapor barrier.   Click here on virtues of foil bubble wrap.
  3. Recycling an old stove is resourceful and free yet we are big fans of a proper sauna stove, the Kuuma stove particularly.  For an avid sauna user: very much worth the investment.
  4. Love seeing cross country skiis and snow shoes outside this sauna.  Its users know how to get out side, enjoy winter, and the health and wellness virtues of their own sauna retreat.

 

 

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Front page Wall Street Journal article on Estonia’s ‘Scavenger Hunt for people who love sauna

March 12, 2013 By Glenn 1 Comment

Today’s WSJ front page includes this article about Estonia’s annual Scavenger Hunt for People who Love Saunas.

This is an annual fun event where teams of four race around with a map to experience as many saunas as they can in the shortest amount of time.  The event has grown to about 600 participants.  A favorite excerpt:

“Estonia’s national love affair with the sauna is rivaled only by neighboring Finland, where “taking a sauna” is like going to lunch or playing a round of golf with business associates.”

WSJ is no stranger to writing about sauna, this front page article from three years ago explains how sauna is the home improvement that’s hottest of them all.

Thanks to saunatimes reader Dan for the heads up.

 

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Jakarta gets into the authentic Finnish sauna game.

March 2, 2013 By Glenn Leave a Comment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Desi Anwar visits Finland, gets taken to around to see saunas and naked butts, then pushes herself toward experiencing the authentic sauna experience.  Her article here for the Jakarta Globe reminds me of a conversation recently while cooling down on the outside deck of an authentic Finnish sauna with a great outdoor chill out zone:

“You hear about people loving the sauna at their health club.  Where do they go to cool down?  Can you imagine how they’d feel about sauna if they could experience THIS!?”

Cool air tingling on the skin while moonlight casts shadows against heavy steam billowing off the body.

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Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood — and the Soul of Wood-Burning

February 27, 2013 By Glenn 1 Comment

 

Wonderful article from the New York Times here.  Excerpts worthy of review beyond thumbing through on a smart phone:

  • ““Solid Wood,” the title of Mr. Mytting’s book, has a double meaning in Norwegian, signifying also a person with a strong, dependable character.”
  • “What I’ve learned is that you should not ask a Norwegian what he likes about firewood, but how he does it — because that’s the way he reveals himself,” said Mr. Mytting. “You can tell a lot about a person from his firewood stack.”
  • “I like to have the bark facing down,” he explained. “That’s the way I learned from my grandfather, and I believe it’s drier that way. But I respect that there are different ways to do it — and basically the most important thing is how much air you leave around the logs.”
  • Got to love the Scandinavian temperament of acceptance: “I respect that there are different ways to do it”.

 

Oslo Journal

Bark Up or Down? Firewood Splits Norwegians

 

Kyrre Lien for The New York Times

Lars Mytting at his home in Elverum, Norway. His best-selling book, “Solid Wood: All About Chopping, Drying and Stacking Wood — and the Soul of Wood-Burning,” inspired a TV program about cutting, stacking and burning firewood.

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Its a Sauna Thing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

January 22, 2013 By Glenn Leave a Comment

life between sauna rounds in the U.P. Michigan.

Brian Confer

Traverse, Northern Michigan’s Magazine is a monthly magazine about life in Northern Michigan, USA.  Their January 2013 edition, via their online publication MyNorth.com, features this wonderful article by Jeff Smith detailing sauna life in The Upper Peninsula (U.P.).  The U.P. is rich in sauna culture, as it is home to many Finnish immigrants and boasts an ideal sauna climate: crisp star filled winter nights and heaping amounts of lake effect snow off the big lake they call, um…Superior.

Many interesting antidotes:

  • “sauna is temple, cleansing ritual and meditation, fellowship, family and community.”
  • “local Finnish reggae band, Conga Se Mene, the band with the sauna beat.”  For some sauna enthusiasts, sauna and Reggae go together like Buffalo Wings and beer.
  • Terrance Lyons reminiscing about his Grandfather and sauna rocks: ““Whenever we would go on an adventure to the lakeshore, my grandfather would pick a stone to take back to the sauna,” Lyons says. His grandpa passed away a year ago, but when Lyons looks at one sauna stone or another, he recalls a vivid image: a particular moment when his grandpa stooped to pocket that rock.”
  • Fred Huffman explaining sauna life while away from the U.P. for a stint: ““They all had electric stoves, not wood burning. They weren’t rustic. It wasn’t the same thing,” Huffman says. “A lot of them that I saw got used once or twice a year. It was just another thing they had to have to make their house complete.””

Thanks Jeff Smith for bringing a slice of U.P. sauna culture to saunatimes readers.

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Mythical aura of sauna visited in the Milwaukee Journal.

January 13, 2013 By Glenn Leave a Comment

An authentic sauna by Midwestern shores. Note the fabulous outside chill out zone - area to allow body to cool down between sauna rounds.

Gary Porter wrote this excellent piece on the traditional Finnish sauna experience in today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper.  Gary summarizes the Finnish history of sauna, and helps the reader locate places to visit of historical interest.  Gary accurately describing the sauna experience: “steam rising from water hitting the rocks takes on a near-mystical aura; the term for it in Finnish is löyly, meaning “spirit, breath, soul,” as it pierces through the body.”

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The Healing Power of Cold.

December 28, 2012 By Glenn 2 Comments

In the January 2013 issue of Oprah Magazine, Dr. Oz informs us:

“A study in Clinical Physiology found that healthy, habitual winter swimmers who jumped from saunas into frigid water had improved immune function compared with those who don’t regularly swim in the cold. Researchers believe that over time, exposure to extreme temperature differences may boost the production of infection-fighting cells.”

We sauna enthusiasts love winter, frozen lakes, naked snow angels, polar plunging – the euphoria and endorphin rush akin to “runners high”.  We smile when it snows.
And come to think of it, yes, it’s true: we rarely do get sick.

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Casey Veggies and PSY bring “Sauna” to rapstream, faux pas and all.

December 14, 2012 By Glenn 3 Comments

Remember looking at a cereal box cartoon with the instructions: “find five things wrong in this photo.”?

Most of Casey Veggies sauna faux pas are as obvious as the entire rap culture.  If this isn’t enough, ‘Gangnam Style’ is now the most watched Youtube video of all time. And if you’re one of the billion viewers, you’ll catch Korean rapper(?) Psy in the sauna, too, minus the blunt and popcorn.:

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Our cat loves the sauna.

November 1, 2012 By Glenn Leave a Comment

A contribution from our friend Paul:

“Our cat takes a minimum of one sauna a day. Walking on cold Wisconsin floors must chill him, as he races us to the sauna. Once inside he sprawls out and lets those warm cedar boards warm him up.

When hot, he simply drinks some cool water, goes to a lower level (so smart), or pushes on the door to leave. Of course we only allow this when we are in the sauna with him. He is truly our sauna cat – sauna kissa.”

Editors note:  Love how Spirit is sprawled out on the upper bench.

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