Initially I was apprehensive about bathing banya-style. I generally tried to avoid situations where I was naked in front of people I don't know. However after a few times going to the banya, I realized that I could actually get cleaner from a banya than from a shower in my apartment. Plus I just felt better. Additionally every time I went to the banya, I would meet new people and we'd have a beer or two afterwards. It became a cultural exchange.
Kazakstan Peace Corps Volunteer Dustin Hogenson writes: A sauna does not adequately describe the initial awkwardness of a banya
A true cultural shock that's more like a learning experience
By Dustin Hogenson
Contributing Writer
Caption: Banya Boys by Jimbo Jetset. Flickr Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
So I'm standing, naked, with fifty other people I don't know. An elderly woman, swathed in a scarf and armed with a broom, is ordering other naked men around. The men, though probably twice her size, do what she says. The room is steamy and I can't really see because I'm not wearing my glasses (did I mention I'm naked?). A Russian man sitting across the way offers to whip me with birch tree reeds. He says in Russian that it will improve circulation and kill dead skin cells. Where am I? Is this one of those awful dreams where you have to give a speech in front of your class completely naked? Then I remember, I joined the Peace Corps and I'm living in Kazakhstan. My water quit working in my apartment and so I have to resort to other ways to bathe. The public banya. A banya, in case you are wondering, is Russian for sauna. But a sauna does not adequately describe the initial awkwardness of a banya.
The banya is more of a ceremony than just an event such as brushing your teeth or shaving. It's something that Kazakhstani people do on a Sunday afternoon much like friends and family go bowling here in the U.S. It's a full day event. The banya consists of three rooms. In the first room, you pay your fee to enter (usually about a dollar or so) and, taking off your clothes and putting them in a locker, you walk into the second room. The smell of sulfur and steam emanates off of everything here; it's hot and steamy like a natural spring.
A banya is generally not co-ed. Culturally, women do the cleaning, however, so there is generally a cleaning lady for both the women's and men's banyas. Hence the elderly woman in mine, bossing around guys half her age and twice her size. The second room is the cleaning room. There are elevated surfaces for sitting and taps on the walls for filling small tubs and buckets with water for cleaning. The third room is a dry sauna by American standards. You would spend your time going back and forth between the second and third room. The goal was to stay in the third room for as long as you could conceivably take it and then go back to the second room to cool off. Wash, rinse, repeat. You keep doing this until you're completely exhausted. It is believed in Kazakhstan that being whipped with birch tree reeds is conducive to ones health. To ask if you want to be whipped is not a strange question in a banya either. Furthermore, it is culturally acceptable to ask if someone is married upon meeting them for the first time. Its also acceptable to ask financial questions like the salary a person makes at a certain job, questions that would be taboo by American standards.
Initially I was apprehensive about bathing banya-style. I generally tried to avoid situations where I was naked in front of people I don't know. However after a few times going to the banya, I realized that I could actually get cleaner from a banya than from a shower in my apartment. Plus I just felt better. Additionally every time I went to the banya, I would meet new people and we'd have a beer or two afterwards. It became a cultural exchange.
Kazakhs and Kazakhstani people generally go to the banya in groups. There really aren't any intramural sports to play on the weekends, so going to the banya both isn't just to get clean but it also gives many people an excuse to socialize. Women would gather together and gossip about whatever came up that week. Men would get together and play cards aftewards. Kazakhs specifically have a general belief that strength is achieved through unity and numbers. They like to be with other people. Personal time is not as highly regarded as it is here in many western cultures. I remember my host family being very concerned about me initially because I would sometimes prefer to sit alone in my room and read a book, rather than sit in the kitchen and drink tea with everyone else; I sometimes simply needed some alone time to absorb what was happening to me in this strange country.
The water and plumbing system in Kazakhstan is a relic of the Soviet Union. Water is heated in a central hub and pumped through iron pipes above the ground to all the houses and apartments in the surrounding area. Generally there are no hot water heaters for individual houses or apartments. As a result, if one house has problems with their pipes, everyone down from them also has problems with their pipes. As one can then guess, hot water does not always work consistently in smaller cities and villages in Kazakhstan.
By the end, I learned to really look forward to my Sunday routine. I'd go for a run in the morning, hit up the banya in the afternoon, have couple of beers with some friends, eat ice cream at home and then take a nap. It was the perfect Sunday. Thinking back, that's one of the things I miss. Though its nice to have consistent hot water here in the U.S., I think I'd give it up once a month to go to a banya if I could.
