RuKsaK

Leaving one of these you’ll have hard warmth all over, skin like polished mahogany, lungs with real steel inside and knowledge of what your mates look like naked – good or bad.

The banya is one of my top Russian traditions – up there with massive alcohol consumption, strippers, cheap illegal taxis, bootleg everything and masses of really handy corruption.

I’m talking about Russian bathhouses. They range in standard, but the nuts and bolts are the same:

The changing room
This is where you get nekkid with your pals. First time around this is pretty tough for a Brit. My brother took thirty minutes of removal stages to get his Tesco briefs off. First time I dropped mine I felt somewhat the same. It’s not like you gaze at each others dicks. Quite the opposite. In fact I could tell you all about the contours of Big Doggy’s arse and describe the hairiness, muscular fatness and tones of his skin. About his dick, which I’ve seen several times now, I can only describe as ‘well, it’s just like everyone else’s – pixels in my brain.’

The washroom
You shower down in here. Also, you rinse and soak your veniki in here. This is a branch of birch leaves used for beating the crap out of your cohort in the steamroom – drawing a few little scratches of blood if possible. The plunge pool is also in here. Even though it’s not anyway, this is the most homoerotic part of the banya. I’ve seen drunker-than-clever guys cuddling, nude under showers in here. Russian pals soaping each other down to every corner-inch of their bodies. I’ve collected all-too-macho back slaps from Russians happy to see a foreigner in there with them.

The steamroom
It’s in here that the process ceases to be a joke – often hilariously. Machismo is paramount in the banya and it manifests itself best in the response to the yelling of:
‘MORE?’
This cry is launched when the heat needs turning up. It always seems to be a huge fat bastard or a weasly fiend who kicks it off. He opens the furnace door, which has been installed by the same people who built the boiler of the Devil’s favourite steam engine, and throws on a chunky mug of water. This swells steam upwards into the dark-woodened room. This slowly wafts down or some guy helicopters a sweaty towel diving all the heat quickly onto us. In answer to ‘MORE?’, no one, absolutely no one must say:
‘No, if you wouldn’t mind old fella, it’s a tad warm and I wouldn’t mind just relaxing.’
Instead they chorus:
‘MORE!’
This goes on until the heat is excruciating and your back and neck start to rasp and peel.

The hottest I ever knew was one in Moscow. A deranged dude ran in, hurled buckets into the kiln and picked up a huge fan and ran up to the wooden deck and started whirling it around. Every living body present lay down instantaneously and shredded under the onslaught. My brother remained seated upright in the midst of this lying nudity. At the moment his nipples exploded into deranged Bunsen burners, I said:
‘For fuck’s sake! Lie down!’
He did.

To carry on about the steamroom would take too long – too many stories I personally love.

The plunge pool
Only for your bravest days, the ones where heart attacks seem like absolute fantasy, you can do as indicated in this self-explained pool. It’s not big enough to swim, but just the right size to scream in. This is an icy, deep bath, which you sling your body into after the steamroom. Men leaping into here have made noises louder than air-raid sirens. It feels fucking great.

After this, you return to the changing room, sit around together, naked, and too exhausted to cover even a single testicle. Have a beer. Do all the above again times three or five. Even numbers are bad luck - you don’t want to chance it in the banya.

It all takes about two hours.

I’ve met people averse to the nekkidness and fuckheatfuck of the banya before ever trying. I’ve said to them:
‘You have a choice. You go home and say Russia was kind of cool, I did some stuff. Or, you go home, and you say:
“Shit, I got naked with everyone. I nearly lost my nipples in a fire! I saw mad, pissed guys cuddling cock-to-cock. Downed a few beers and left with skin like polished mahogany.”
'What do you think?’
‘Let’s go to the banya.’ they say.

My wife says there’s been too much swearing on this blog. However, I have to say this and urge you to do the same:
‘Three big fucking mental cheers for Russian banyas!’

Saturday, November 27, 2004

Banya