Hot and steamy in Astana's banya

Claire McCarthy warms herself up with some hot and steamy activities at Astana's city banya, not to mention the birch leaves!

By Claire McCarthy, on Saturday, January 28, 2012

Astana's city banya – three floors of steamy, warm goodness

With the weather remaining way below freezing (and set to stay that way for another few months) it is inevitable that one gets drawn towards anywhere warm. This weekend I discovered where the city banya was situated and I went along Sunday afternoon to warm myself up (and get rather clean in the process.).

A banya is any form of steam bath. It was first heard of in Russia about 1000 years ago and is similar to the Finnish sauna and Turkish hamam. It is basically a wooden hut, heated to temperatures above 90° Celsius and there are, of course, various procedures that go along with visiting the Russian banya.

I first discovered the joys of the banya back in the 90s when I lived in a town called Yaroslavl, a small city, near Moscow, situated on the banks of the river Volga. It is something I remember to this day. On an early morning in mid-November, we dragged ourselves out of our warm beds and piled into our landlady’s 1980s Lada and set off for their ‘country house’, or, as it is known in Russian, dacha, to enjoy the joys of their own banya.

I am not sure what I expected but arriving in the village, I was pleased to see small wooden houses, each surrounded by a number of outhouses. As we were to discover, one of these was the bathing house. After a welcome vodka and some heavily salted fish, we were told they had lit the banya in preparation for our arrival so it was now warm enough.

Entering the small building , I was struck by the smell of newly cut grass and wet wood. We were told to strip off, wrap ourselves in a sheet and put on the felt hat they had brought for us. We carefully entered the tiny, wooden room and were hit by a blast of scorching hot air. We sat on the wooden benches and started to slowly melt.

Shortly afterwards a neighbour came in and gestured I should go outside. I really wasn’t sure what for, but followed dutifully, thinking perhaps I would get a nice cool glass of water. But I was mistaken. The lady took out a large bunch of birch leaves (veniki), told me to bend over and proceeded to beat the back part of me furiously with them. The front side was, needless to say, even more painful. Once this was over I was sent outside and she duly threw a bucket of ice cold water over me! Screaming at first, I slowly started to feel the blood rushing to my skin which made me full of energy! Although the build up wasn’t so pleasant the feeling afterwards was incredible. I went straight back in, wanting to go through this amazing new process again!

Having read up on the subject, it seems it has numerous health benefits, including the obvious increase in heart activity leading to an increase of endorphins in your body – not something I was surprised to hear!

Selecting your birch twigs at the banya

This weekend, remembering my love of this Russian institution, I searched out the city banya and went along to the five-storey building to enjoy all the health benefits it had to offer. It is a huge building with a male and female baths. It is all very confusing upon entering and, in true Soviet style, there is a tiny cashier window to buy tickets and the obligatory employee stamping the entry tickets. And you are given a sheet and flip flops and head to the changing rooms. Inside there are all ages of women, walking around with birch leaves, (also covered in the leaves) and carrying all kinds of toiletries.

We first entered the hamam with the hot stones, where massages were being carried out, then there was the Finnish and Turkish sauna and a large dip pool. In all of these no one seemed to be using their leaves. It seemed the only place to use them was the wash room. This was a huge hall with taps and bowls and showers. Women were scrubbing, cleaning, showering, chatting and of course slapping themselves with their birch leaves! Coming out after spending three hours of many rounds of hot and cold treatment, I exited into the subzero, early evening feeling warm, and I was positively glowing.