Once your body gets hot and the temperature is high, rhythmic tapping of the veniks all over the body makes for a good massage.
So what is it used for? The veniks is for fanning the heat. Veniks are bundle of twigs and leafy branches bound together from types of tree – usually birch or oak, and some claims to use eucalyptus but that’s not usually the case. Once you’re hot enough, you go out and take a plunge in the icy-cold pool and if in Siberia, just walk out and lunge into the snow. You may lay or sit and the higher up you go, the hotter the air and steam. Inside the banya, a series of wide wooden (or stone) benches set up like steps with one higher than the other. The Russians became infamous for their enthusiastic bathing and despite this eons old tradition, the banya is still trends today.Ī tradition banya is heated with firewood but these days many establishments use electric heating.
No sweat bath in the world has been as well chronicled as the Russian Baths even the information on Finnish sauna is minute in comparison. Banya (a Russian type of sauna or a kind of steam bath) is one of the oldest Russian traditions.