by autumn and sauna
We said goodbye to summer and welcomed autumn by working outdoors in our yard all weekend. All day yesterday we were cutting and pruning some hugely overgrown laurel to let in some sunlight, trimming some of the neighbour’s birch tree branches that were resting on our roof, bringing in some pots of tender plants and rooting cuttings of favourite flowers for next year’s garden.
Our bodies ached all over from the full day’s physical labours, but we had a wonderful reward last night. We’d made a couple of fresh ‘vastas‘ from those trimmed leafy birch branches. (It’s usually done in early summer, but we were desperate!) We fired up our sauna for the first time since last winter. Aaah! I don’t remember how many years it’s been since we’ve had vastas. Beating aching muscles with these leafy, fragrant boughs in the hot steamy sauna makes for a wonderful massage, relaxing mind and body. I was even transported to the past, remembering other saunas. I fell asleep last night the minute I put my head on the pillow.
As most know, the sauna (pronounced ‘sow-nah’) is an important part of Finnish culture. I love the authentic sauna, usually a separate building or one half of a Finnish summer cottage, with its wood-burning stove covered with rocks and with a tank of hot water on one side. Situated next to a lake or river, it’s wonderful to go for a refreshing dip or swim, then back into the sauna again, and repeat as desired. The steam (löyly), the birch vasta and the swim are very much a part of the ritual of the sauna.
I’m not as fond of the ‘city’ sauna with the electric-fired stove because it’s a bit drier and I miss the cooling swim. The vasta is often missing too unless one makes a special effort to find birch groves in the country, gather the branches and store them. My parents were keen sauna bathers so my father built this one in our house when they lived here in their retirement.
(Our local recreation centre has a sauna with the electric stove but they don’t allow water to be thrown on the rocks. Without steam it’s not a sauna! )
Lots more work today continuing the cleaning up! Huge laurel branches strewn over the yard had to be trimmed and chopped, thick branches cut for firewood and the rest hauled into the trailer to be taken to the greens recycling depot. Raking and more raking. I even pulled out wild morning glory and blackberry branches that were invading from over the fence. Another sauna tonight?
UPDATE Sept.26th: In case you missed the comment from Dem, who is an Englishman with a Finnish partner, he has posted a video of how to make a vasta over at his blog. Thanks, Dem!
September 23, 2007 in Finland, Estonia & Finno-Ugric, Home by Marja-Leena
Oh, yes, why don’t you? Envy here. I used to love going for a sauna in London but this sounds so much nicer, with the wood-burner, and being at home. I’d have to try the birch twigs!!
Make yourself a laurel crown for effort. I can see why birch would be the choice for whacking purposes (not porpoises)- ours throw down those twiggy bunches all the time and they would be just right for the vasta. How lovely to have your own sauna, I bet your skin feels great.
I’m a little surprised that you haven’t been using the sauna over the summer. Obviously I’m a convert to sauna along with all things Finnish but now if I’m imagining my dream house, it has a wood burning sauna in the garden. And a lake to dip in afterwards of course.
Vasta is called different things in different parts. Are you originally from Eastern Finland/Karelia? I met somebody once who used a different word and they were from the east – they probably called it vasta but it was a few years ago and much home made kossu (home made as in we dissolved our own salmiaki into it) had been consumed. Kati’s family (from Hame) know them as vihta. There’s a very dried out one hanging behind me (Kati used it for an education outreach project in Liverpool schools, to do with Scandinavian/Nordic culture) but sadly there’s no sauna to go with it. Hey ho! A good excuse, if one were needed, to visit Finland again soon. When the lake is frozen over, rolling in fresh snow is a pleasant alternative to swimming. Unless you sauna at Mannerheim’s hunting lodge where there’s a pump to prevent a small square of the lake, enclosed by wooden walkway, from freezing so that you can swim in (presumably sub-zero) water straight out of the sauna.
Ooh yes, you must sauna again tonight! As often as you can!
(Sorry, this comment turned a little bit longer than planned!)
TG – a home sauna, especially wood-fired is really worth a try, if you can find it! You will never forget the experience.
Anna, Ideally we like bushier vastas than the fallen ‘twigs’ . And yes, sauna is good for the skin too.
Dem, I know you are a sauna lover so your comment is appreciated and not too long at all! If we had the sauna by the lake, we’d use it in the summer. Our indoor one heats the house too much and we can’t seem to cool down enough afterwards just with a shower. Yes, ‘vasta’ is the term used in eastern Finland and the Savo area where I’m from. ‘Vihta’ is more common in the north and west I think. We certainly awakened a longing for Finland again and for my relatives’ cottage saunas by the lakes. Time for a visit soon, preferably in the summer! I’ve never had the courage to roll in the snow or dip into a hole in the ice, brrr.
Ah, yes – wasn’t thinking it through! There’s an electric sauna in the summer cottage but they don’t use it in Summer for the same reason – it’s okay at their home because the electric sauna is away from the main living areas and doesn’t heat them up. I strongly recommend rolling in the snow, and visiting Finland in the Winter as well as Summer. I’m not so sure I’d be happy jumping through a hole in the ice though.
Kati’s dad made a little low-res video for me about making vihta/vasta before my first visit last November – I’ll have to upload it to youtube so you can show Anna what they’re like and how they’re made.
Thanks again, Dem! I’d love you to show that video. I want to go to Finland’s Saame in winter, the Land of Joulupukki (Santa Claus).
Wow, you really do the twiggy beating thing! Does it have to be birch, and if so why? I only have experience of city saunas, and I should imagine not only the physical but also the other kind of atmosphere is a very different thing.
Here hammams are the thing, but I’ve never tried one.
I’m uploading the video as I type and will leave a link here when it’s done. Here are some links to my sauna photos: the sauna stove and the water heater
Lucy, let’s forget caling it ‘twiggy beating thing’, it sounds painful 🙂 There’s a photo of vastas in the link given, though they look well-used. I love the fresh soft fragrant birch leaves in a bunch, warmed over the hot steam over the stones …how to describe the feeling over aching muscles…
Birch is used traditionally, probably because it’s very common in Finland and the leaves are small. I’ve heard of other kinds used when birch is unavailable in other parts of the world, but I don’t know about their merits.
Hammams are middle eastern steam baths, I presume?
Dem, thanks for the links, which I’ve made active for my readers. I remember your great photos from your trip to Finland last year! It’s interesting how many styles of stoves, both wood-fired and electric there are. The old wood burning ones I’ve seen were usually home made with a rockwall, and a metal door. I wish I had photos of the one at my parent’s cottage in Manitoba. In the top photo, you can barely see our electric one with the tile surround.
I hope I’m not overcommenting my welcome here? I kind of feel I have an insight with my feet in both cultures.
I think the ‘twiggy beating’ perception and confusion arises from the use of birch. Obviously, birch was historically used for punishment beatings and the verb ‘to birch’ means to administer corporal punishment. I think it’s therefore possible that mention of birch conjures in the mind of the English reader some sado-masochistic element which we know is not part of it at all. What actually happens is that we gently pat ourselves – or our partner – with the leaves. In some case it might not be terribly gentle but the point is never to administer some kind of painful beating. The leaves may be dunked in cold water before hand, or placed on the stones to make them hot, whatever is preferred. It simultaneously stimulates circulation and exfoliates as well as surrounding us with the scents and textures of the forest. To anglo-saxon mindsets that haven’t moved so far from Victorian ideas of self-discipline as we like to think, the sauna, with its extremes of heat and cold and birch beatings can seem a near sado-masochistic health kick – it stings but by jingo it’s good for us – like TE Lawrence paying a batman to beat him and diving through the ice to swim in winter rivers. In fact it’s the exact opposite, it’s a luxurious social bathing ritual which by jingo is good for us too. Although not luxurious in the sense of privilege because everybody participates, even apartment blocks have shared sauna facilities in Finland.
Something went wrong with the video – I’ll let you have the link when I’ve sorted it out.
Dem – You’ve explained it well, thanks! I appreciate your insight from the English point of view, as well as your knowledge of the Finnish culture. My husband, though not Finnish, loves sauna and is always bragging about everything Finnish so people think he’s one! If our family wasn’t here, he’d like to go live there. Hope your video will work soon!
The video is here – http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CSgVgGY01lI
and I’ve posted a short thingy about it on the blog…
Yep, I am a victim of my culture. As a gentle brushing thing it actually sounds really nice.
Ah, sauna!
Only last night as The Someone and I lay in a bed illuminated by the light silvery light of a cold, full moon, I told him all about Finnish saunas and blissful evenings spent soothing ski-weary bodies and calming work-stressed minds in that enveloping heat…
I am trying, delicately, to sow the seeds in his mind, a sauna here at The FVH would be heavenly!
Of course, a log cabin in Finland would be even better but, petit à petit….
Thanks for this fabulous post
Dem, I wrote a longish comment on your blog, but I think it flew somewhere else! The video is wonderful in illustrating what the vasta/vihta really is – pretty benign.
Lucy, gentle brushing, gentle slapping, it feels great. I hope you can experience it one day.
Mouse, I’m glad this brought back happy memories! We both need to go back for the real log cabin sauna, right?!
Truth to tell, a solitary log cabin in the woods would provide the perfect escape from this highly-charged and emotionally draining Thing I have going right now!
Mouse, I hope things calm down for you soon!
marja-leena: ooh – so sorry to come so late to this entry! In Alaska, I grew up with the Russian-influenced version of the sauna – a ‘banya’ (which means ‘bath’). We had a wood-fired stove, with granite river rocks piled all around it, and wooden benches. A metal wash-tub sat on top of the stove for hot water, and a large plastic garbage can full of icy cold water waited out on the porch, for us to fill our small tubs with. We used ‘wennike’ – which are like your vastas – cut from alder shrubs. (We didn’t have any birch trees in Kodiak). The women in the native villages also use a scrubber made from the cleaned roots of beach rye – called a ‘taghik’. It works like a loofah, once softened in the water. We often liked to add a few drops of oil of wintergreen or eucalyptus to the water we splashed on the rocks, to make an aromatic steam. It’s been several years since I last took a banya – at my sister’s house in Kodiak.
Thanks for the little trip down memory lane!
Hi Jackie, so glad you chimed in! Your description of the banya sounds just like the sauna!! The oil or eucalyptus are modern additions to some saunas, especially when there are no birch vastas to give the wonderful aroma. I wonder if this Russian version comes from the Karelia region next to Finland, or if it’s common in all of Russia? How fascinating…
I’m amazed and gratified how many responses this post has had. Thanks everyone!