Affluence Ruining Tradition : Helsinki Saunas Running Out of Steam

HELSINKI, Finland —  Helsinki’s public saunas, traditional meeting-places where Finns relaxed and swapped gossip in the humid heat, are disappearing in the affluent, modern city.

Until 20 years ago there were about 150 in the capital, according to the Finnish Sauna Society. Now there are just five.

“All kinds of people came to the saunas, irrespective of their social class. They took off their clothes and they were all equal. It was democracy without trying to be democracy,” said the society’s Martti Karvonen.

“It was a social happening,” said chairman Juhani Perasalo. “You were sitting there solemnly discussing this and that and you didn’t know if you were talking to a laborer or what.”

Sauna, a centuries-old way of keeping clean in the harsh Nordic climate, is more than just a bath. It is a cornerstone of Finnish culture, inspiring poems, paintings and scientific treatises on its effects on health.

Many a big business deal is clinched in the sauna. The Finnish Cabinet used to adjourn there after its meetings, until the advent of women ministers put a stop to that.

The tradition, however, is under threat.

“People now have access to private saunas in their apartments or live in blocks (buildings) where there is a sauna available one day a week. It is very much to be regretted,” Perasalo added.

Purists sneer at the electrically-heated saunas built onto bathrooms even in tiny flats. They say they are no substitute for the old public bath houses heated by wood-burning stoves.

The 60-year-old Kotiharjun Sauna in the working-class district of Sornainen houses separate saunas for men and women.

For $3.50 bathers can steam for as long as they can bear. In a dressing room lined with polished wood lockers, patrons enjoy a naked lunch of cola and Finnish makkara , or sausage.

After a quick shower, it’s into the sauna itself. Inside the room there are stone steps rising about seven feet. The hardy sit at the top, where the temperature can reach 212 degrees, which would make water boil.

As each bather enters, he turns a lever on the stove to release more steam into the hot-house atmosphere.

Bathers periodically pour water over themselves from metal buckets or lightly beat themselves with the vihta , a bound bunch of birch twigs which enhances sweating.

Afterwards most just shower but some pay extra to be scrubbed and soaped on a stone slab by a female attendant.

Finns take saunas wherever they go. Equipment for the Finnish troops now in Namibia with the United Nations included portable saunas.

But the sauna has a bad image abroad, Perasalo said.

“If you think how they are viewed in the big cities of Europe, they are like brothels. We want to take the red light away from saunas.”

The first written reference to the sauna in what is now Finland was by an Arab traveler in 915 AD. Today, there are 1.5 million saunas for a population of 4.9 million.