No photos, please!

Well, I finally did it. I went to a Russian banya. I always said to myself that I wouldn’t go until I’d gotten down to the weight on my driver’s license. Still, my friend, Cindi, and I felt compelled to accept an invitation to girls’ night out at the banya of the local police training college.

Now ladies’ changing rooms and communal showers are not among my most favorite things. Neither are beer, green tea and dried squid. Put them together for any kind of occasion and it fills my heart with dread. When I confided to our hostess, Oksana, that American women generally like to be fully clothed when we get together, she gave a hearty laugh and assured me that the experience would be more enjoyable than cake, vodka, and, uh, intimacy with one’s husband.

Here’s how it worked. We got undressed and into our ill-fitting white sheets. To add to our humiliation, we donned felt ‘dunce’ caps. Then we sat around a long table heavy laden with the aforementioned food and drinks. The beer, apparently, makes one sweat better. (It caused merriment all round that I brought bottled water for the occasion.) Finally, when Cindi and I could stall them no longer (and it wasn’t for lack of trying, believe me) we meekly followed them into the sauna for Round One.

Without going into graphic detail, I can tell you that women here are far less self-conscious about their bodies than we Americans are. And they get no end of pleasure from beating one another to pulps with swags made from birch twigs and leaves. As if this wasn’t enjoyable enough, afterwards one had to jump into an icy pool. (At this point, Oksana’s words of comfort rang very hollow indeed.)

In between these forays into the sauna, we returned to the table for more food and drink. After several rounds, Cindi and I were limp with exhaustion and faint with hunger for food that actually tastes good. At the first opportunity, we made our excuses and escaped.

The experience, by the way, was so awful that we plan to go again next week☺