BW Boutique Hotel

In Russia the bania, or sauna, once included intimate family rituals. A bride, on the day before her wedding, was taken for a sweat bath. Her sweat was collected by pouring milk over her body and catching it in a bowl. The milk was mixed with flour to make a dough. The dough was plastered all over her while she completed her bath, then scraped off and kneaded to make bread for the marriage feast. Childbirth often took place in the bania as well. Following a funeral, families gathered not in the dining room for a meal together but in the bania to grieve.
In Scandinavia communal bathing in a sauna involves nudity that is as neighborly as a potluck supper. As an American living on a tiny out-of-the-way island in Denmark, the thought of bathing with the postman who lived down the street wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. But when the opportunity arose, I jumped right in with my friends just for the experience. Now that I live in Oregon, a hike to one of the many natural hot springs along theCascade mountain range can mean bathing nude without company.
My favorite bath of all time was around a large vat of muddy black clay at the Dead Sea. The salts and minerals in the clay bring a tingling sensation. I had plastered it on thick and relaxed in the sun—a multitude of chairs are available—allowing it to dry completely. The point is to take time rinsing off in one of the many outdoor showers because the sticky mud adheres between teeth, in hair, and under armpits. Trying to get it all off brings laughter to last a lifetime.
Back in downtown Jerusalem, I visited the Turkish baths more than once because the environment simply fascinated me. Here plump-and-proud-of-it naked women sit on long benches in a large, steamy, mist-filled room. Children in tow, the robust women scrub little ears and backsides and shampoo each other’s dark hair. Showers along the walls constantly turn on and off as women wash, gab, sweat, and shower again and again. The baths are a place to socialize and gossip, for here “the echo repeats every word thrice.”
Mikkel Aaland, an expert on cultural bathing rituals and history says Turkish baths recompensed Middle Eastern women for amusements enjoyed by proletarian European women. Historically the domain of Muslim men, they eventually became the social gathering place for wives.’

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