Laminated lumber sauna (banya)
WOOD
As raw material, the company uses selective spruce and Siberian larch wood.
It is these coniferous species that are most optimally suited for making a modern wooden bath that not causing any trouble during operation.
The spruce wood, in comparison with pine, is less inclined to warping and cracking during drying, is slightly resinous and is favourable for healthy air. As the Russian proverb says, A spruce wood house, a healthy heart.
Unlike pine, spruce has small and rare knots, so the walls of the rooms and facades look more modern and stylish.
Siberian larch is known for its moisture resistance, durability and hardness. This is what we recommend to our customers to use for making the lower rounds of the outer walls.
The Russian and Finnish bath-houses have common roots and despite the common misconception about the ‘dry steam room’, in principle, there is not so much difference between them. A traditional Finnish sauna, just like a Russian one, allows hot phyto-massage with the help of birch brooms.
An extract from the Primary Chronicle (1110’s) about the Slavic bath:
He then reached the Slavs at the point where Novgorod is now situated. He saw these people existing according to their customs, and on observing how they bathed and drenched themselves, he wondered at them. He went thence among the Varangians and came to Rome, where he recounted what had learned and observed. ‘Wondrous to relate,’ said he, ‘I saw the land of the Slavs, and while I was among them, I noticed their wooden bathhouses. They warm them to extreme heat, then undress, and after anointing themselves with tallow, they take young reeds and lash their bodies. They actually lash themselves so violently that they barely escape alive. Then they drench themselves with cold water, and thus are revived. They think nothing of doing this every day, and actually inflict such voluntary torture upon themselves. They make of the act not a mere washing but a veritable torment’.They were so surprised to hear that.
