Banja

Earlier this week I was been invited to go to traditional Russian banja (sauna) with my Russian friend. I was quite exited about it! Russian people often think that the Finnish sauna is "dry and hot", so I was really interested in seeing the Russian version. This banja was located close to Ulitsa 1905 Goda -metro station and there was separate sections for men and women. Two hours costed something like 700 Rubles. There was five of us (Finland, Russia, Spain and Columbia were represented) to share a cabin for changing. We also rented a separate box for valuables. To get the whole experience we all bought special, pink hats for banja: a hat protects your hair and also your head/brain from serious damage (some Finns might have few things to say here because we don't really use those hats but anyway... that could explain something too ;-))) ). I must say the Russian banja was very good and exiting experience: there was a special person for "doing the operation". First she was trowing some water (with herbs and spices) on everybody and then she started to throw some water to this "hole" on the wall. It started to become warmer and the smell was very nice and relaxing. She was also waiving a towel around the banja so that the smell became stronger. Then the same thing again from the beginning... Just lovely! We looked very funny with our hats though, like moomins ;-) There were also a little pool (9 x 9 metres) for swimming and another "Finnish style" sauna. After few times in Banja and swimming, we had some tea and carrot juice in our cabin. The whole place was clean, nice and cosy with friendly atmosphere and there was many different kind of people. This banja also had some spa services like massage, skin care, hair dresser and so on: www.baninapresne.ru. I felt really good and relaxed afterwards. Fantastic, I must come here again! After the banja we went to have some dinner and drinks to a English style bar/restaurant close by: www.16tons.ru/eng. They have very nice and famous house beer. Because of the woman's day we all got red roses too. Perfect :-) Tons has own night club and rock club too. I just noticed from their web site that there has been some Finnish bands playing: Eläkeläiset, Aavikko and Bitch Alert. I must say this place is quite good for gigs, some other rock clubs here are for thousands of people and they may not have that nice atmoshere.