The Ukrainian Sauna

Above: The homemade Ukie sauna is a delight. We were disappointed we didn't get to hit ourselves with tree branches, but that's for wet saunas only.

"Mike, I have better idea," Petro, the university photographer, said in response to my proposal of a Friday night photo shoot. "We will go to sona!"

"Sona?" I said.

"Yes, the place where you get hot to sweat."

"Oh, sauna."

That night, Brett, Petro and myself made the journey to Petro's house on the outskirts of Lviv. There we went ice skating(my feet are too big for all of the skates in Ukraine), ate fresh honey and drank tea made from herbs Petro picked in the Carpathian Mountains, talked about GK Chesterton, and then slipped into our swimtrunks(or speedo depending on which country you were representing that evening) and ran into the subzero night. Petro had built the sauna himself, but waited until we were inside to tell us that the last one he built burnt down. I wasn't sure what to expect from a homemade, Ukrainian sauna, but it was phenomenal. I had always experience the sauna in a 'sweat, then get out' context. It's not a ritual and does not seem as serious in America.

We were serious about this process. After 15 minutes of sweating in 90 degree Celsius(190 degree Fahrenheit) dry heat, I began to drip. Petro jumped to his feet and charged out the door, jumping into his sandals in the process. We barreled out into the night and dove head first into a bank of snow.

After rolling around for a couple minutes, we came back inside and entered the sauna again, without drying off our bodies. We repeated the process, this time taking pictures, and then went back inside to eat dinner. 

Beer, Petro told us, is the best thing after the sauna. I managed to eat 10 meat cutlets, a heap of sauerkraut, and a pile of noodles in one sitting, before biting into a minnow for desert. While holding the tail and head between both hands, you bite into the abdomen and eat it, bones and all. We retired to a movie, more beer, and a cuban cigar. Life is great.

This was the best day of 2009 I've had in Ukraine.