Russian banya from Russia

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Banya or sauna

Helth

Design

Stoves

Banya or sauna

Swedish bath researcher Jan Bjaarnhag differentiates four types of baths by conditions of temperature and humidity:

We agree with this classification. According to this classification Russian banya belongs to the third type. Nevertheless there is a principal difference between steam sauna and Russian banya. The essence is that in the presence of the same values of temperature and humidity the steam can be dry and light or wet and heavy. Everything depends upon the temperature of water evaporation. Water is evaporated on stones, so temperature of water evaporation is defined by temperature of stones. In Russian banya stones are situated inside the stove behind the closed door which is opened only during adding of water. That enables to heat such stones 3-4 times more than open stones, and keep not very high temperature in the steam room. In Russian banya stones are heated approximately up to 800 degrees that enables to create dry and light steam. In sauna water evaporates on the open stones providing the temperature 200-300 degrees or in the steam generator with the temperature 100-200 degrees.

Thus the principal difference of Russian banya from sauna lies in different constructions of stoves. The stove for Russian banya is a massive stationary construction which is built of brick. <<More details ...>>

It's interesting that the first remarks about similar constructions of stoves appeared about 150 years ago. It's an element of the city culture of Russian banyas. Country culture of of Russian banya developed practically in the same way as sauna culture: from "black-type" banya to "white-type" banya. It's the last one and a half century that created modern Russian banya culture, formerly practically unknown in Europe, and which we wish to make you acquainted with.

Baths of the third type differ from others by the fact that only there one can utterly use venik. In the first and second type baths venik dries out rather fast and it crumbles because of low humidity. And in the baths of the fourth type venik is of no sense due to the low temperature.