What is the name of the old Russian bath. The curious history of the Russian bath. History of Greek and Roman Baths

Favorite tradition of every Russian

Russian bath in black

The bath has always been and is for a Russian person not just a place where you can take hygiene procedures and cleanse your body of pollution, but a special, almost sacred structure, where cleansing takes place not only on a physical, but also on a spiritual level. After all, it is not for nothing that those who visited the bathhouse, describing their own feelings, say:

How he was born again into the world, rejuvenated by 10 years and cleansed his body and soul.

The concept of the Russian bath, the history of appearance

The Russian bath is a specially equipped room, which is designed for taking water hygiene and thermal procedures in order to prevent and improve the whole body.

Today it is difficult to judge what prompted the ancient man to think about creating a bath. Perhaps these were random drops that fell on a red-hot domestic hearth and created small puffs of steam. Perhaps this discovery was made intentionally, and the person immediately appreciated the power of steam. But the fact that the culture of steam baths has been known to mankind for a very long time is confirmed by numerous archaeological excavations and written sources.

So, according to the ancient Greek historian-chronicler Herodotus The first bath appeared in the era of tribal communities. And having visited in the 5th century. BC. the territory of the tribes that inhabited the Northern Black Sea region, he described in detail the bathhouse, which resembled a hut-hut, with a vat installed in it, where they threw red-hot stones.

Unwashed Europe and clean Russia

Already later sources indicate that the bathing culture also existed in Ancient Rome, whose rulers spread it to the conquered territories of Western Europe. However, after the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, both the bath and the ablution as such were forgotten. A ban was established on bathing culture, which was explained, among other things, by wholesale deforestation, and, as a result, a lack of firewood. After all, in order to build a solid bath and heat it well, you need to cut down a lot of trees. A certain role was played by medieval Catholic ethics, which taught that the exposure of the body, even for washing, is a sinful act.

The fall in hygienic requirements led to the fact that for many centuries Europe was mired not only in its own sewage, but also in diseases. Monstrous epidemics of cholera and plague only for the period from 1347 to 1350. claimed the lives of more than 25,000,000 Europeans!

Bath culture in Western European countries was completely forgotten, as evidenced by numerous written sources. So, according to the recognition of the Queen of Spain, Isabella of Castile, she washed herself only twice in her life: when she was born and when she got married. No less sad fate befell the King of Spain, Philip II, who died in terrible agony, consumed by scabies and gout. Scabies completely tortured and brought Pope Clement VII to the grave, while his predecessor Clement V died of dysentery, which he contracted because he never washed his hands. It is no coincidence, by the way, already in the 19th and 20th centuries, dysentery began to be called the "disease of dirty hands".

Around the same period, Russian ambassadors regularly reported to Moscow that the king of France stinks unbearably, and one of the French princesses was simply eaten lice, which the Catholic Church called God's pearls, thereby justifying its senseless ban on baths and the culture of accepting elementary hygiene procedures.

No less curious and at the same time repulsive are the archaeological finds of medieval Europe, which today can be seen in museums around the world. Eloquently testifying to the ubiquitous filth, stench and uncleanliness, exhibits are on display for visitors - combs, flea traps and saucers for crushing fleas, which were placed directly on the dining table.

Today, it is already proven that French perfumers invented perfumes not to smell better, but to simply hide the smell of a body unwashed for years under the fragrance of floral aromas.

And it remains only to sympathize with the daughter of the Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, - Anna, which, after marriage to the French king Henry I wrote to the father at home, they say:

Why did I anger you so much, and why do you hate me so much that you sent me to this dirty France, where I really can’t even wash my face?!

But what about in Russia?

And in Russia, the bath has always existed, at least according to the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea who are still in the 500s. wrote that the culture of ablution accompanies the ancient Slavs throughout their lives.

According to ancient descriptions, the bath was a log building with a hearth, on the hot coals of which water was poured from time to time, which turned into steam. According to popular beliefs, the keeper of the bathhouse and its soul is a bathhouse - an absolutely naked old man, whose body is covered with leaves from a broom. Bannik was supposed to be appeased from time to time, treating him with bread and salt, which once again emphasizes the respectful attitude of the Slavs to the bath itself and its “essence”, which they literally idolized.

Having appeared on the territory of Russia back in the days of paganism, when people worshiped the cult of fire and water, both the bathhouse and the hearth were deeply revered by the Slavs, which is noted in their works by researchers of Russian life I. Zabelin and A. Afanasiev. The bath was not just a place where you could cleanse your body of dirt and take hygiene procedures, but also a kind of medical institution where people of the ancient medical specialty could put any sick person on their feet.

In turn, the chronicles of the X-XIII centuries. point to the widespread distribution of the bath among the Eastern Slavs, starting from the 5th-6th centuries, when it was affectionately called movnitsa, mov, soap and vlaznya. And even with the baptism of Russia, when the church began an active fight against folk healers and all sorts of superstitions, the bathhouse did not cease to exist, but only strengthened its influence, as it became a place for obligatory visits before performing the most important church rituals - baptism, weddings, communion and other .

“Heat me a bathhouse in white!”

The bath in white, as V. Vysotsky sings about in his song, appeared in Russia much later than the bath in black, gradually replacing the latter. At first, the Slavs built baths without a chimney, in a black way, but as natural ventilation an intermittent opening door was used. In a black sauna, smoke does not go into the chimney, but into the sauna room itself, from where it exits through an open door, as well as through a special hole in the ceiling or wall (the so-called "pipe"). After the firebox is finished and the coals are completely burned out, the door is closed, the pipe is shut up, and the shelves, benches and floor are washed with plenty of water from soot and the bath is kept for about 15 minutes before use, so that it dries and gains heat. Then the remains of the coals are raked out, and the first steam is released so that it takes the soot from the stones with it. After that, you can steam. A black bath is more difficult to heat and cannot be heated during washing (like a white bath), but due to the fact that the smoke eats up all the old smells, the black bath has its own charm, unattainable in a white bath.

Later, they began to build baths in white, where a stove-heater with a chimney acted as a source of heat and steam.

In addition, at that time there was another interesting and unusual way to steam right in the Russian stove. To do this, it was carefully heated, and the bottom was covered with straw. Then a person climbed inside the furnace, taking with him water, beer or kvass, with which he poured over the red-hot walls of the hearth and took a steam bath, after which he went out and doused himself cold water. Even the weak and old did not deny themselves such an unusual pleasure, who were simply pushed into the oven on a special board, and a healthy person intermeddle next to wash and steam the weak, as expected.

Bath for a Russian is more than love!

Bath accompanied every Russian person from birth to death. In no other culture of the world did she become as widespread as in Russia, where her visit was elevated to an obligatory cult and had to take place regularly.

Not a single celebration could do without it, and, meeting even a random guest, the owner first of all offered him to visit the bathhouse, and then taste the treat and spend the night. It is no coincidence that in Russian fairy tales, in addition to shelter and dinner, travelers are always offered a bathhouse.

Bachelorette and bachelor parties, as they would say today, necessarily ended with a visit to the bathhouse, and the young themselves, having become spouses, were obliged to take it regularly, each time after marital intimacy, if they went to church the next morning. It was supposed to go to the bath with almost any ailment, especially if it was a cold, runny nose, cough and joint diseases.

The therapeutic effect of this simple and pleasant procedure is comparable to the strongest effect on the entire human body. When every cell of the body receives an unimaginable charge of energy, forcing it to work in a new way, thereby restarting the natural processes of regeneration and self-renewal. And the alternation of high temperatures with cold, when, after visiting the bath, it is customary to jump into the snow, an ice hole, into a river, or simply douse yourself with ice water - this is the best way to harden and strengthen the immune system.

As for the special love of Russians for the bath, it has found its embodiment not only in folklore, but also reflected in historical documents. So, the Russian historian and researcher of the customs and life of the Russian people N.I. Kostomarov repeatedly notes in his works that people went to the bathhouse very often in order to wash, heal and just for fun. According to him, for a Russian person, visiting a bath is a natural need and a kind of rite, which neither adults, nor children, nor the rich, nor the poor can violate.

In turn, foreigners who visited Russia were surprised to note the habit of the Russian people very often and for a long time to wash, which they did not meet either in their homeland or in other countries. In fact, as a rule, they bathed once a week, on Saturdays. But for foreigners who almost never bathed, it seemed "very often." So, for example, the German traveler Adam Olearius once wrote that in Russia it is impossible to find a single city or even a poor village where there would be no bathhouse. They are here just at every step, and they are visited at every opportunity, especially during periods of illness. And as if summarizing, in his writings he noted that, perhaps, such a love for the bath is not devoid of practical meaning, and the Russian people themselves are so strong in spirit and healthy.

As for Europe, for the revival of the custom of bathing and bathing regularly, she should be grateful to Peter I and the Russian soldiers, who, terrifying the same French and Dutch, steamed in a hastily built bathhouse, and then jumped into the icy water, despite to the frost outside. And the order given in 1718 by Peter I to build a bathhouse on the banks of the Seine completely horrified the Parisians, and the construction process itself gathered onlookers from all over Paris.

Instead of a conclusion

According to many researchers of the culture and life of the Russian people, the secret of the Russian bath is simple: it cleanses and heals at the same time. And the architectural solution of the building itself is uncomplicated and is an ordinary room with a stove-heater, which allows a person of any income and position to have it.

As for the special love for the bath and the popularity of the bath ritual throughout history, this once again emphasizes the desire of every Russian person for cleanliness, neatness, health, clarity of thought and decency. The bathing tradition, despite the fact that outwardly remains an everyday phenomenon, is an important element of culture, which is reverently preserved, passed down from generation to generation, and remains an important sign of belonging to the Russian people. Thus, as long as the Russian people exist, so long will the banya exist.

In front of a broom, both couriers and oligarchs are all equal, because they go exclusively naked.
Where exactly the first baths appeared, history is silent. But they went to conquer the world in three ways. The first led from Ancient Egypt to Sparta, and then (through Rome and Byzantium) to Turkey. Turkish baths have warm floors and walls. The second bath route is through the Russian north to the Finns, and through Siberia - and even to America. In a Russian bath, the air itself is heated with hot steam. And the third track led from Far East to Central Asia and Japan. Here the body is warmed with water, sawdust and stones.

1. Rome

Either a bath, or a city - the ancient Romans built their terms for a feast for the eyes, with ideas like gilding and painting. The largest are the terms of Caracalla, at a time - more than two thousand naked bodies. There was also a gymnasium, a library and a cafeteria. Roman baths are generally an analogue of current fitness clubs. There the Romans pumped their muscles with weights and played ball. The main thing is to put a slave to the abandoned clothes, otherwise the bath thieves will endure everything to the last sandal. Baths were heated with hot water pipes: they were laid under the floor and outside the walls.
Today, the bathing palaces are in ruins, and the baths of Caracalla (or what is left of them) are under the protection of the Roman police.

Hamam is an octagonal marble room with underfloor heating. The ceiling is certainly in the shape of a dome so that the condensate does not drip onto hot bodies, but flows peacefully along the walls. On the floor are hot flat stones, on which it is convenient to lay out tired bodies. Trampling someone with their feet is a common thing here: this is how mustachioed attendants do a soapy massage.
On the female side, the girls consume sherbet and smear themselves with rose oil. Once here, Turkish women rubbed their legs, armpits and shameful places with arsenic ointment to get rid of excess curls. Others even treated the auricles and the nasal cavity. Still - there is competition in harems! The virgins had a special status: only they could bathe naked, the rest - in thin clothes to the floor.
There is a prominent Turkish bath in Istanbul, called Chagaloglu, in operation since 1741. Once upon a time, Turkish sultans soared here, and now they even shoot movies. For example, the epic about Indiana Jones.

The city of baths is about Budapest. Right in the middle of the capital, thermal springs are located, which it would be a sin not to convert into baths. So the Hungarians chose not to sin: during the Turkish rule in the 17th century, they built the famous Chasar, Kiraly and Rudash. Glass roofs, intricate mosaics and wave pools, but the most precious thing is the water. In 1937, at the Bathing Congress, Budapest was named the international city of therapeutic water procedures. Today there are about 20 thermal baths in the capital.
In the bath called Széchenyi, you can accommodate a hundred people - and all the royal family. Because in the middle of Budapest in the city park a natural palace was built under the baths. Here is the hottest spring in Europe, 77 degrees Celsius. Enthusiasts bathe right under the open sky.
An interesting fact: under Soviet rule, Magyars could enter the bathhouse naked, in one apron with a pocket for a key. Today, even in same-sex establishments, they wash in

The bathing method, which was later dubbed Russian, was invented by the peoples of the Urals, combining together a wooden frame, a hearth with coals, stones and water, which these stones generously pour over. It was possible to heat the Russian bath in white and black. The Black Soaphouse is a wooden structure without a pipe at all. The smoke leaves the open door, and the soot settles on the walls and ceiling. It is good to put such a hut on the bank of the river, so that from the steam room - immediately into the water, in the old fashioned way. A bath in white for sissies is a dressing room with a samovar and bagels, a steam room with a stove, a bench and a chimney.
The most famous Russian baths "with history" are the Moscow Sanduny. A true admirer of the steam room is obliged to wash at least once in the department where the last shots of the "Battleship Potemkin" were filmed.
Until 1743, in Russian baths, citizens of both sexes washed together, until a Senate decree stopped fornication.

In the 50s of the last century, economical Germans discovered a bunch of spare parts from tanks and decided to solder electric heaters from them. This is how the electric bath was invented. In order to quickly sell the goods, advertisers came up with a legend about Finnish saunas. Allegedly, this is a civilized washing room without any harmful fumes for dirty brooms. Everything is dry, clean, sterile. Do not splash water in all directions - you will be shocked by the current. Inside - decorous American soldiers in a row, and not drunken bearded men under the benches. But the sauna is the same Russian bath, only in Finnish. Northern neighbors also revere birch branches, oak benches and a steamy stopar.
The most famous sauna is the one that Finnish citizens built in the Olympic village of Berlin for the 1936 games. Alas, purgatory turned to hell under the bombs of World War II. And in Finland itself today there are more than 2 million saunas (for 5.3 million people).
An interesting fact: in neighboring Sweden, it is considered a crime not to sell, but to buy “love” from available citizens. But in Helsinki in the right saunas - please choose. If you want, they will offer a local beauty, but if you need it, a Russian or Estonian is cheaper.

Baba Yaga is not at all an insidious cannibal, as fairy tales teach. Inviting Ivan Tsarevich to the stove, she was not going to bake pies with human flesh, but to wash the dirty stuff properly. This is how they washed before in Siberia: they raked out all the coals from the heater, put a pelvis with boiling water - and wash to your health. From there, the custom of bathing in the hearth reached America. The Indians dug their bathhouses right in the ground, and it was possible to get into such a steam room only on all fours. Later they began to build a special wigwam on the edge of the settlement: in the middle there are hot coals, and around them red-cheeked Indians whip each other with brooms made of corn stalks. Such a structure was called "temazcal": there is a window on the ceiling, the walls are low, you can't even stand up to your full height. Because the Indian bath attendants were all hunchbacks and dwarfs.
The royal baths of the Mayan Indians can now be found in Mexico in the suburbs of Cancun, the city of Chichen Itza. But you won’t be able to wash there: the city has been empty for five hundred years

Bath in Japanese is called "ofuro". Instead of a traditional stove with coals and benches, there is a wooden barrel with hot sawdust. You sit in such a barrel almost up to your neck and imagine yourself to be Diogenes. Instead of sawdust, you can sit in ordinary water heated to 45 degrees. The main thing - the head in the cold. And no soap - the fat of slaughtered animals is unsympathetic to Buddhists.
A public Japanese bath is nicknamed "sento": it's a little crowded in a barrel for ten people at once, because the Japanese are sitting in a row in the pool. And they don’t complain about crowding: sento is rather a club where exhausted men in barrels decide the fate of their homeland.
Tokyo's onsen bath (with water brought from hot springs) has dozens of tubs and barrels. These kegs are not filled with rum or even beer, but with living Japanese gentlemen. Simpler people go to public baths, which are on every corner and are simply called "yu" - hot water.

Don't dig a hole for someone else, dig a hole for yourself. This is exactly how in Central Asia, in particular in Tajikistan, they go to the bath: they burrow into the sand calcined by the sun. Hard-working Tajiks scrape off the rocks its special black variety, which can be passed on to the younger generation as a load of dowry. If in the Turkish regions you saw a head sticking out of the ground, you should know that this is not a bathhouse, but childish pranks. Because a person in a bath should have a cold compress on his forehead, a protective umbrella over his head. And the venerable doctor Avicenna advised his relatives to feed their heads with watermelon, so that sweat and other liquid provoked by melon culture would immediately go into the sand. You look, some cotton plant will sprout in the place of the family bath. Saving!
In Uzbekistan, in the town of Nurata, there is not a house, but a full bowl. That is, "spring" in Tajik. The local chashma is a chapel, a bathhouse and holy relics. That is why the local sand and earth are considered healing.

The history of the bath goes back to ancient times. On the basis of archaeological and historical data on the history of the emergence and spread of the bath, it can be argued that this was a “multifocal” process. People learned to use natural phenomena for their own benefit, they learned the properties of fire, water and stone. This was the prerequisite for the emergence of modern baths. Naturally, the spread of the bath is associated with the peculiarities of the migration factors of mankind, which transferred its experience, habits, and way of life to new areas of habitat. Already from the names themselves, the origin of the baths can be seen, for example: Finnish bath (sauna), Russian bath, Roman baths, temescal, kamaburo and igiguro, Japanese dry stone bath, etc.

So, Egyptians already about 6 thousand years ago, great importance was attached to the purity of the body and baths were used everywhere. Egyptian priests washed themselves four times during the day: twice during the day and twice at night. Since everywhere there were beautifully arranged baths available to everyone, public baths were at first stone or clay baths or pools filled and emptied with copper drain pipes, and hot water was not used for washing.

Over time, the Egyptian baths received the original device, which was later used by the Romans, and later adopted and improved by the Byzantines. Flaming hearths were installed in the basement, and on the upper tier there were stone beds, heated from below by hot air through special holes. In the steam room there was also a pool with cool water, where the city dwellers took a subsequent bath.

During the excavations of the ancient Egyptian city, archaeologists discovered the remains of an ancient bath. This bath consisted of two floors. On the upper floor there were large stones - stove benches heated from the lower floor. Visitors to the bath lay down on these stones, and the bath workers rubbed their bodies with healing ointments and massaged them. There was a hole in the stone couch through which steam from the lower floor passed. In Egypt, inhalation in baths was quite widely used. They used a mixture of water and beeswax as soap.

On the second floor in the middle there was a contrast pool, there were also rooms for gymnastics and a room - a clinic with medical instruments. A spillway was installed in the floor of the bath, connected to the general drain of the city. This drainage also served as the central heating of the ancient Egyptian city.

Adherence to the bath and massage, moderation in food allowed the Egyptians to maintain a slender figure and helped to successfully fight premature aging. Egyptian doctors of that time were considered the best in the world, and their art in the treatment of various diseases almost did not do without water procedures, that is, without a bath.

For 1.5 thousand years BC, the bath was widely used for hygienic and therapeutic purposes. in India. The ancient physicians of Tibet had their own medical practice of hydrotherapy, which brought together the best experience of Chinese and Indian doctors. Basically, the treatment of most diseases was reduced to a variety of compresses and the use of baths.

It is believed that for the first time steam baths and massage were simultaneously combined in India more than two thousand years ago. The traveler Petit-Radel described this procedure as follows: “A certain amount of water is splashed on hot iron plates. As it evaporates, it fills the space and envelops the naked body of a person in the room. When the body is well moistened (steamed), it is stretched out on the floor, and two servants, one on each side, press the limbs with varying force, the muscles that are extremely relaxed, then the chest and abdomen. Then the person is turned over, and a similar pressure is applied from the back. All this lasted, according to the traveler, a good three-quarters of an hour, after which the person did not recognize himself at all - as if he had been born again.

In Ancient Greece The first baths were called Laconicum because they were built by the Lacedaemonians. The baths were round in shape, in the middle of the room there was an open hearth that heated the room. Also in the room were a pool and baths. There was no drain, so we had to scoop water from the pool and from the baths.

Alexander the Great after his campaign against Egypt, returning to Greece, ordered the construction of the same baths as in Egypt. Under him, oriental-type baths with the same hot floors spread in ancient Greece.

Baths in ancient Greece were also hospitals in which people got rid of their ailments and were available to everyone, including the poor.

Gradually, the Greek baths improved, became more comfortable and richer. There were baths only for noble people of society. They were built and lined with expensive materials and, for a sense of luxury, they were decorated with precious metals and stones.

Enjoyed special love and popularity baths of the ancient romans. The cult of the bath literally existed here. Even when greeting at a meeting, the Romans, instead of greeting, could ask: “How are you sweating?” The Romans simply could not imagine life without a bath. “Bath, love and joy, we are together until old age,” such an inscription has survived to this day on the wall of one ancient building.

The rulers of Rome did not spare any funds for the construction of baths. The most expensive materials were imported, architects excelled in their art. Often in their luxury, baths surpassed palaces. Baths were decorated with entire systems of waterfalls and fountains, sculptural compositions, marble columns, hanging gardens, swing baths, wall paintings. Basins and dishes in the Roman bath were made of silver and gold. The Romans were naked in the bath. Only women covered their hair and pearl jewelry, as they deteriorated from the hot air.

In the bath, the Romans not only washed, but also talked, drew, read poetry, sang, and arranged feasts. At the baths there were massage rooms, areas for physical exercises and sports, libraries. There were many fountains, baths and pools. The bath complex was equipped with a heating system that both heated the water and heated the floor. Wealthy Romans visited the bath twice a day.

Both private and public Roman baths (terms) were distinguished by exceptional luxury - precious marble pools, silver and gold washstands. By the end of the 1st century BC e. in Rome, 150 public baths were built with a capacity of up to 2500 people!

It is curious to note that the rooms for sweating were warmed up in the same way as in modern Russian baths and Finnish saunas: in the corner there was a brazier, on a bronze grate there were stones over hot coals. There were also rooms with dry and wet steam.

In ancient Rome, baths were also valued as a remedy for many diseases. In particular, the outstanding Roman physician Asclepiades (128-56 BC) was even nicknamed the “bather” for his commitment to bath hydrotherapy. Asklepiad believed that cleanliness of the body, moderate gymnastics, sweating in the bath, massage, diet and walks in the fresh air were necessary to cure the patient. “The most important thing,” Asclepiad argued, “is to capture the attention of the patient, destroy his blues, restore healthy ideas and an optimistic attitude to life.” It was the bath that created such sensations in the patient.

Already in those days, the Romans used contrast douche, i.e., alternate immersion in hot and cold water.

When Pompeii was excavated, the remains of a not very large bath were discovered. The bath also had many rooms. In front of the entrance to the bath there was a playground, gymnastic exercises or just a park for recreation. The first room inside the bath was elongated, decorated with mosaic floors, walls - with stucco, many sculptures and mosaics. It was a locker room (apodyterium), on the walls there were shelves for things and clothes of visitors. After the locker room there was a room with a blue domed ceiling and walls covered with paintings depicting flora and fauna. There were two pools in this room - one with hot and one with cold water. The visitor should have had the impression that he was in a fairy garden.

From the locker room there was also an entrance to the steam room with dry steam, where the stove was located. And from the next room with pools, there was also a passage to another steam room (caldaria), where they steamed with wet steam. Ventilation was provided by opening windows. There were also baths, showers in the form of a fountain, and many basins for washing. Water from the ceiling was diverted through the grooves into the general sewer. Doors and windows were made of bronze.

A central heating system with heated walls and floors was developed. With the help of the furnace, air and water were heated, which then circulated in the cavities of the walls and floor. A double coating was used so that the front surface was not very hot. The entire complex was heated by burning oil.

Not far from the steam room there was a room for cleaning the skin and for massage. The skin was cleaned with special scrapers made of wood or ivory. The Romans washed themselves with soap made from goat fat and ash, as well as fine sand delivered from the banks of the Nile. Bath workers performed all the necessary operations - from massage to shaving.

The water was supplied to the thermal baths by a water pipe. Up to a million liters of water could go to the needs of the baths per day. Very small baths were heated with firewood, which was pre-treated and did not smoke.

Heiress of Rome Byzantium also did not sit without a bath. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, over the next two centuries, the baths of the Romans throughout Europe fell into complete decline. Most were destroyed by semi-savage and ignorant peoples, only a few of them survived. The terms existed much longer in the eastern part of the former Roman Empire - Byzantine.

Even in the trade agreement with Russia, a bath was mentioned. In the early Byzantine cities there were baths everywhere, and in such large centers as Constantinople and Antioch, there were a great many of them. However, over time, the bath in Byzantium ceased to be the center of public life, as it was the case in ancient Rome. The old baths seemed too luxurious and were converted into Christian churches.

The capital's baths consisted of several rooms that were heated. They supplied hot water. The provincial baths had a very wretched appearance and were heated "blackly". “Smoke goes into the room,” wrote the monk Michael Choniates, “such a wind blows through the cracks that the local bishop always bathes in a hat so as not to catch a cold.” Small bathhouses were built at the monasteries. It is difficult to say how often they bathed in them: the monastic charters contained different instructions (from twice a month to several times a year, and sometimes “from Easter to Easter”). At the same time, the bathhouse remained a place of healing: doctors prescribed a bathhouse for the sick 1-2 times a week (depending on the disease).

It was in Byzantium, in the city of Pergamon, which is today in Turkey, that the famous Roman physician Galen practiced - an enthusiast and a big fan of the term.

Under the influence of many cultures and everyday habits, technologies and religious beliefs of different peoples, the Roman bath in the East was transformed into a phenomenon no less distinctive and culturally almost more significant and remarkable - an oriental bath, or hammam.

The Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula, closely communicating with the Byzantines, adopted some traditions from them. Even before the advent of Islam, frequent washing was quite traditional for the peoples of the East. This is a natural necessity in a hot climate. However, the Arabs at the same time only doused with cold water, but their acquaintance with the luxurious traditions of Roman bathing, which happened during the conquest of the Levant by the Arabs, brought them the first of the wonders of the bath - hot steam. The Arabs learned how to bathe, but they did not stop pouring cold water on them.

The fact is that immersion in a bath, pool or other container of water seemed unnatural to the Arabs: according to their religious beliefs, this is "bathing in one's own mud." And only with the advent of Islam did the development of such an original phenomenon as an oriental bath begin. The Prophet Muhammad experienced the action of the Roman-type baths and highly appreciated them. He also pointed out that baths help increase fertility. According to Islam, this goal is sacred to every true believer. Therefore, the approval of the prophet opened a wide road for the hamam to the Islamic world.

The fall of the Roman Empire coincided in time with the flourishing of Islamic culture, and in particular with the emergence and rapid development of oriental bath, or hammam which has survived to this day. Like the Roman baths, the hammam very soon became the center of social life. The construction of a hammam was considered a charitable deed worthy of the respect of others. “Whoever has committed many sins, let him build a bathhouse to wash them away,” said the famous Arab writer Yusuf Abdalhadi. If a new hammam was opened, the herald spread the news throughout the city, and the first three days the visit to the hammam was free.

The owner of the Turkish bath - Minder - rose to meet each visitor, even the last poor man. He walked towards him, opening his raised hands, greeted him as a long-awaited guest whom he had not seen for a long time. Although I saw it quite recently, because every free person went to the bathhouse a little less often than to the mosque. And some every day. Married women from wealthy families loved the hammam even more. Only here they gained complete freedom, were delivered from unfair suspicions on the part of jealous husbands, who let their wives go to the bathhouse not only without fear, but even with the greatest willingness.

A visit to the Turkish bath in those days looked something like this: after smoking a pipe and drinking coffee, the visitor began to sweat, and the servant led him towards pleasures. The Romans would have called the friendly reception hall of the Turkish bath apoditerium. It was followed by the tepidarium in the ancient baths, where they are already beginning to take water procedures.

In the Turkish bath, this section is called soukluk, in which there were wooden benches with soft beds, each time covered with fresh sheets. Like the Roman baths, it is much warmer than the undressing room, but still not as hot. It's hot in the next room. But only there everything is arranged differently than in the premises of the Roman baths: the Muslim religion requires shyness. First of all, in the soukluk, neither the street nor the vast expanses are visible from the windows, and the sunlight on the finest day barely penetrates the premises. The rays enter through small windows in the dome. This architectural detail - the dome - may be the most important in the eastern hammam. The main bathing hall is also darkish and also with a dome at the top.

It had alcoves, a kind of office for the privileged. Alcoves were of two types. There are eight alcoves of the first type, and everything in them is a little better than in the common room. There are two containers for water - kurnas; polished bronze faucets with hot and cold water sparkle like gold. There are six more well-appointed offices. Each has its own small pool with marble walls and blue water, so transparent that you can see the playing pattern on the marble slabs. However, the most important place in the hall is in the center. There is a smooth octagonal stage. From it, as from a stage, you can see the entire hall with a marble floor. Sociable people were attracted by this place - chebek-tashi.

The oriental bath procedure still consists of five main actions: warming up the body,
energetic massage, cleansing the skin with a mitten, lathering and dousing with water and the final stage - relaxation.

The bath massage technique in the Arab East had features that were different from the ancient traditions. The most important thing here was not the therapeutic effect of the massage procedure, but its ability to deliver exquisite bodily pleasures. The bathhouse was one of the main centers of public entertainment; bath attendants often engaged in elementary prostitution here. According to the testimony of the Austrian doctor Guarinonius, “they themselves, naked naked, they only did what they rubbed, crushed and aroused to voluptuousness.”

On the territory of Georgia since ancient times, baths were built near hot springs, thanks to which they had natural steam. The attraction of Tbilisi (Tiflis) has always been sulfur thermal baths and every guest of Tbilisi tried to visit them. Once A.S. Pushkin visited such a bath and then described them in detail. “I have never seen anything more luxurious than the Tiflis baths either in Russia or in Turkey.”

Baths had a domed roof, through which soft light entered the room. The pools are lined with marble, the baths were in grottoes, which were lit by torches. Water from hot springs in the mountains flowed through ceramic pipes and filled pools and baths.

Local residents brought their guests to the bathhouse, held noisy holidays there, sang songs. Baths in those days worked around the clock and people often spent the whole day there.

As far as we know, the Tbilisi sulfur thermal baths have been restored according to old traditions and are successfully used for relaxation and treatment, while at the same time attracting tourists.

Steam baths in China have their own specifics. To begin with, the client steamed, and then special bath attendants wiped him off the dirt with disposable special disposable washcloths without soap (!). "It hurts, but it's useful!" thought those who tried it. However, soap is used in modern Chinese baths. Wooden slippers are put on in the bath so that the feet do not burn on the tiled floor, but in China they know how to bathe.

Japanese bath- furo has a peculiar history. In Japan, according to Buddhist laws, the manufacture of soap was forbidden (as it was necessary to kill animals for this) and people got used to washing with hot water. In addition, Japan has a damp climate and in winter, people visited baths with hot water several times a week.

The Japanese used their kama-buro sweat baths with good results for various injuries, skin diseases, stomach disorders, arthritis and rheumatism. Ishi-buro, which has been known for the last 10 centuries, had a similar effect. Not far from Nagasaki, rules for the use of this type of bath were found, including contraindications. The bath could not be used by persons with venereal diseases, epilepsy, leprosy. Here they began carefully, within 3-4 days, to carry out acupuncture treatment. It is recommended to use the bath once every 10 days. It was forbidden to eat, drink, make noise, urinate, perform sexual acts. The bath made it possible to maintain personal hygiene, had a preventive value and had a therapeutic effect on 7 skin diseases.

Eskimos of Alaska It was believed that sweat baths have not only hygienic, but also healing properties for many diseases, including muscle pathology.

Indian tribes In Central America, the ancient Mayan temescal steam baths were used not only for hygiene, but also for medicinal purposes for rheumatic, skin and other diseases. Temescal is recommended by doctors and is currently used, while extracts from plants and other ingredients are used, which, when evaporated, give a therapeutic effect.

Excavations in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe nationality Mayan testify to the fact that the inhabitants of Central America had a sweat bath, as evidenced by the remains of their dwellings, which are more than 2000 years old. The Spaniards, who came to this area in the 16th century, observed from the Aztecs a culture of taking sweat baths called "temescal", which they borrowed from their Mayan ancestors (teme - in Aztec bath, calli - house).

Among the nomadic tribes living in the central and eastern regions Africa, there were ritual and religious rites associated with the use of hot air and steam baths. They were also used for medicinal purposes.

The most detailed description of the properties, features and significance of steam baths in people's lives was compiled in the 5th century BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the famous ancient Greek historian. It was from his works that we learned about the baths of Babylon, Crete, Syria.

The oldest written mention of bath at the Scythians is also the testimony of Herodotus, who in 450 BC described the habit of the Scythian-Sarmatian tribes occupying the territory of modern Ukraine, to wash in a tent, in the center of which there were heated stones, on which hemp seeds were thrown.

Steam bath in Russia(soap, movnya, mov, vlaznya) was already known among the Slavs in the 5th-6th centuries. Everyone used the bathhouse: both princes, and noble people, and ordinary people. In addition to its purely functional purpose, the bathhouse played an important role in various rituals. For example, a bath was considered necessary on the eve of the wedding and on the next day of the wedding, and visiting the bath was accompanied by a special ceremony.

Many foreign travelers and scientists wrote about the baths of the Slavs and Russians

The Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea, who lived in the 5th century AD, writes that the bath accompanied the ancient Slavs all their lives: they were washed here on their birthday, before the wedding and ... after death.

“And they don’t have baths, but they build a house of wood and caulk its cracks with greenish moss. water, which is poured over a red-hot hearth, and then hot steam rises. And in the hands of each is a bunch of dry branches, which, waving around the body, set the air in motion, attracting it to itself ... And then the pores on their body open and flow with there are rivers of sweat, and on their faces - joy and a smile, "- this is how one Arab traveler and scientist wrote about the ancient Slavs.

The bathhouse is mentioned by the Arab traveler Ibn Zeta, or Ibn Rusta, (912), who saw on the territory of modern Bulgaria primitive dwellings made of earth with a gabled roof, heated by red-hot stones, which were poured over with water, while people took off their clothes. Entire families lived in such structures until the onset of spring. They can be considered the prototype of the bath. There is also a mention of the bath in the chronicle of Nestor (1056), where the Apostle Andrew describes his journey in 907 years through Northern Russia and visiting the Mordovians, a branch of the Finno-Ugric group of tribes; who then lived near Novgorod.

In the year 906 from the birth of Christ, the glorious campaign of Prince Oleg against Tsargrad (Constantinople) ended. Russia concluded an agreement on a trade union with Byzantium, in which, among other things, a bath was mentioned. The fact is that Russian merchants began to arrive in Byzantium. Many of them lived for long periods in Constantinople, which at that time was an open and cosmopolitan city. A Russian community was also formed, which occupied an entire quarter in Constantinople. Therefore, the agreement with Byzantium specifically states the requirement: to provide Russian merchants not only with food, drink and lodging for the night, but also with the opportunity to go to the bathhouse as much as they want.

Nestor describes an episode that took place in 945. As is known from many sources, Princess Olga of Kyiv took revenge on the Drevlyans three times for the murder of Prince Igor. One of the episodes of this story is connected with the bath. The ambassadors of the Drevlyans arrived at the princess to convey to her the offer of their leader to become his wife. Olga ordered that a bathhouse be heated for them, so that, according to custom, they could take a steam bath from the road. When they, suspecting nothing, began to wash, Olga's servants closed the bath from the outside and set it on fire.

Olearius (German scientist 1603-1671), who traveled to Muscovy and Persia in 1633-1639, wrote that the Russians firmly adhere to the custom of washing in a bathhouse ... and therefore in all cities and villages they have many public and private baths. Olearius, by the way, mentions that the Russians came to the conclusion that False Dmitry was a stranger because he did not like baths. “The Russians,” reports Olearii, “can endure intense heat, from which they turn everything red and become exhausted before that; that they are no longer able to stay in the bathhouse, they run out naked into the street, both men and women, and douse themselves with cold water; go to the bath again.

The construction of baths was allowed to anyone who had enough land. The decree of 1649 ordered "soap houses to be built in vegetable gardens and in hollow places not close to the choir." Home baths were heated only once a week, on Saturdays, and therefore Saturdays were considered bathing days and even government offices did not work on them. Usually, whole families bathed in home baths at the same time, men and women steamed together. However, in public (“commercial”) baths, people of all ages and sex also steamed and washed together, however, women on one side, men on the other. And only in 1743, by a Senate decree, c. "trade" baths for men to wash together with women and for the male sex over 7 years old to enter the women's bathhouse, and for the female sex of the same age - respectively, into the men's bathhouse.

As written in an ancient treatise, washing gives ten benefits: clarity of mind, freshness, vigor, health, strength, beauty, youth, purity, pleasant complexion and the attention of beautiful women. Note that the one who understands the steam bath, goes to the bathhouse not so much to wash, but to warm up and sweat.

Warming up leads to a beneficial change in the functional state of the organs and systems of the body, increased metabolism, promotes the development of protective and compensatory mechanisms. This is explained by the beneficial effects of heat and sweat on the cardiovascular, respiratory, thermoregulatory and endocrine systems in most people. Bath calms the nervous system, restores vigor, increases mental abilities.

Thermae and Roman spas in Western Europe long life was not prepared. The fall of the Roman Empire, the spread of Christianity marked the beginning of a new era. She was stern and gloomy. The Middle Ages threw scientific medical thought back several centuries. Ancient culture, science and natural science, the teachings of Hippocrates, Asklepiada, Galen turned out to be forgotten. Obscurantism eliminated not only the knowledge of hygiene, but also eradicated elementary disgust from the minds of people.

Water consumption per capita was reduced to the norm of drinking, while in the Roman Empire up to 700 liters of water were spent per day per person. Washing was generally absent from the daily routine. Clothes were worn without change seasonally, and sometimes all year round; in the cold period, several layers were put on. Linen was not washed and changed for years, it was worn until it completely decayed. The exposure of the body, even alone with oneself, was considered sinful. Medieval cities lacked sewerage and running water. Needless to say, the bath was completely excluded from everyday life. Sewage splashed right under the thresholds of houses. Epidemics and pestilence, low life expectancy, and high infant mortality have become the norm. Nightmarish epidemics of plague, cholera, dysentery, syphilis, smallpox devastated medieval Europe. A huge role in their spread was played by the overcrowding of the population in cities, the lack of basic hygiene rules.

Other countries of the world did not know such a rollback in the development of hygiene and, as a result, the bath business ... Scandinavians and Slavs in the north, the Muslim world in the south and east - all these peoples and countries continued to enjoy the bath. Central and Western Europe was isolated and rotten alive. However, the crusaders, who returned from Byzantium after the first crusade, brought their impressions of the eastern bath. Since the beginning of the 13th century, there have been timid attempts to organize something similar to it (most often in knight's castles) for personal use.

Speaking of Scandinavia. Aboriginal Finnish sauna is a tiny log cabin with no windows, with one small hole in the ceiling for smoke to escape. In the middle of the room was a stone hearth. The fire of the furnace heats the stones, while the smoke fills the room and is vented through a hole under the ceiling.

When the stones are sufficiently heated, the fire is extinguished and the logs of the sauna are washed from the inside from ashes and ashes, after which the door and the outlet under the ceiling are tightly closed. When the sauna stands a little, a vat of water and prepared brooms are brought inside, which are soaked, after which they begin to steam. At the beginning of the 20th century, not earlier than this sauna is spreading throughout Europe.

Initially, it is used for therapeutic and prophylactic purposes, then it is widely used by athletes for recovery and relaxation after training. The sauna is being improved more and more, more modern materials are used in its construction. Wood-fired stoves disappeared shortly after World War II, replaced by electric and gas heaters.

Let's get back in the Middle Ages - in Western Europe were also healed by hot springs. After the Crusades in the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries in Europe, baths began to be built according to the eastern principle. They were called Roman or Turkish. After some time, the baths were banned as obscene establishments. Most likely this was the reason for the spread of terrible epidemics of the Middle Ages. The traditions of hydrotherapy and the use of thermal springs gradually fell into decay. Roman baths, their traditions, significance and methods of healing were forgotten.

"People stank of sweat and unwashed clothes, their mouths stank of rotten teeth, their bellies - onion soup but from bodies, if they weren't young enough already, old cheese and sour milk and cancer. Rivers stank, squares stank, churches stank, stank under bridges and in palaces. The peasant stank like a priest, the artisan's apprentice stank like the master's wife, all the nobility stank, and even the king stank like a wild animal.

The ancient name of the capital of France, Lutetia, is translated from Latin as "mud". A little later, the Romans called it the "city of the Parisians" (Civitas Parisiorum) and built baths, an amphitheater and an aqueduct there.

“Water baths insulate the body, but weaken the body and expand the pores, so they can cause illness and even death,” stated a fifteenth-century medical treatise. In the XV-XVI centuries. rich townspeople bathed once every six months, in the 17th-18th centuries. they stopped taking baths altogether. Sometimes water procedures were used only for medicinal purposes. They carefully prepared for the procedure and put an enema the day before. From such "cleanliness" epidemics began.

The French king Louis XIV bathed only twice in his life - and then on the advice of doctors. Washing brought the monarch into such horror that he swore never to take water procedures. The Queen of Spain, Isabella of Castile, washed herself only twice in her life - at birth and on her wedding day. The famous heartthrob, King Henry IV, washed only three times in his entire life. Of these, two times under duress.

The daughter of one of the French kings died of lice. Pope Clement V died of dysentery, and Clement VII, like King Philip II, died of scabies. The Duke of Norfolk refused to bathe, allegedly out of religious beliefs, and his body was covered with ulcers. Then the servants waited until his lordship got drunk dead drunk, and barely washed it.

Most of the aristocrats were saved from dirt with the help of a perfumed cloth, with which they wiped the body. Armpits and groin were recommended to moisten with rose water. Men wore bags of aromatic herbs between their shirt and vest. Ladies used exclusively aromatic powder.

Only in the Renaissance, when the development of culture, medicine and science was restored, did hydrotherapy regain its significance. However, due to epidemics of plague and cholera in Western Europe, hydrotherapy was an unsafe occupation.

However, the church continues to consider the bath sinful. There are new versions of the causes of epidemics. Some come down to the fact that the plague was sent down as a punishment for sinful infatuation, while others see in water procedures a harmful effect on the body and a source of malaise. The first bath was nevertheless built on the Seine in 1234. However, the terrible plague that broke out in the 14th century, which devastated European cities, removed the issue of the development of the bath from the agenda. She was excluded from the everyday life of a European for a very long time - until the beginning of the Renaissance.

The humanistic ideas of the Renaissance led to a renewed interest in the physical beauty of the human body, and with it, in water procedures. As we said above, healing springs, which are numerous in Europe, are gaining immense popularity in this era. Baths from healing waters were recommended as a cure for most diseases and simply as a tonic and rejuvenating agent. Baden-Baden, Karlsbad, Spa become the most visited resorts in Europe. In these places, discovered and developed by the Romans, on the ruins of Roman resorts, the construction of hotels and pensions begins, which can accommodate thousands of visitors. A trip to the waters becomes an indispensable attribute of social life. Baths and pools, the frivolous atmosphere of resort life lead almost to the revival of late Roman bathing traditions - orgies and a complete rejection of conventions.

And only in the XIX century the baths are reborn again. The importance of the healing properties of water increases again when using baths, baths and various water procedures.

Look what he wrote about Russian steam bath back in 1778, the Portuguese Sanchez was the doctor of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna (this treatise can be found in Moscow in the Lenin Library): “I do not hope that a doctor will be found who would not recognize a steam bath as useful. Everyone clearly sees how happy society would be if it had an easy, harmless and so effective way that it could not only maintain health, but heal or tame the diseases that so often happen. For my part, I consider only one Russian bath, properly prepared, to be capable of bringing such a great benefit to a person.

When I think about the multitude of medicines from pharmacies and from chemical laboratories, coming out and brought from all over the world, how many times I wanted to see that half or three-quarters of these buildings, built everywhere at great expense, would turn into Russian baths, for the benefit of society. And at the end of his life, having left Russia, Sanchez contributed to the opening of Russian steam baths in all the capitals of Europe.

The Englishman W. Toog, a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, wrote in 1799 that the Russian bath prevents the development of many diseases, and believed that low morbidity, good bodily and mental health, as well as a long duration the lives of Russian people are explained by the positive influence of the Russian bath. By the way, from 1877 to 1911, about 30 dissertations were written on the therapeutic "impact of the Russian bath."

Easy steam for you!

Myths about the Russian bath - a very rare topic and vehemently guarded by fans of light steam. Why protected? By virtue of boundless love for the bath, for brooms, for rituals and traditions around the bath. This love is strengthened by the fact that “in the bath” many people earn financial profit, from Internet writers of articles to order and ending with sellers of stoves in stores who have never taken a steam bath in a Russian bath. All these motley writers and merchants wrote so much and so much unnecessary around the bath that the real history of the Russian folk bath was under the threat of complete rewriting and distortion.

To begin with, let's define who and what does he mean when he talks about the Russian bath? To do this, we divide the information into several types depending on the submission:
1) The Internet submission of copywriters and optimizers who do not understand baths begins like this: “from time immemorial”, “from ancient times”, “from time immemorial, the Russian bath has been popular”, etc. This last sentence makes me laugh hysterically. It's like writing that sitting at the table while eating was very popular and common, or, for example, cloth clothes were in special demand among our ancestors. These phrases are equally meaningless and have nothing to do with the history of the bathhouse. It's just that copywriters get paid for 1000 characters and the percentage of keyword matches in the text. The content is of little interest to them.

2) The second way of presenting information about the Russian bath, which was mistakenly adopted, is connected, even, not so much with the time interval of the description of the baths, but with the one who describes the features of the Russian bath. Especially, over the past ten years, with the formation of guilds of stove manufacturers, consortiums manufacturing barrels and tubs with bath tubs, associations of stove-makers and bath attendants, forums for Internet lovers to take a steam bath in verbal battles, an entire industry has developed, and a subculture promoting the Russian bath as an unusual way of relaxing and recovery. At the same time, the word “tradition” or “according to tradition” often comes into use. Foreign guests of the Russian Empire or Russia at different times did not consider the Russian bath as a tradition. They saw it as a way of washing and maintaining hygiene with the unusual use of steam and brooms. But those who went to the bathhouse treated it as an ordinary procedure for removing dirt from the body. For the very hygiene of a clean body in its classical form was inaccessible to the general population, no matter how beautifully we wrote about it, seasoning the texts with the aromas of herbs, hot stones and other bath paraphernalia.

3) And the third group of my impromptu classification of the description of the Russian bath is connected with the historical time interval in which we meet information about the Russian bath. Most of the relevant texts come from the end of the 19th century (after 1870). These are descriptions of baths as architectural objects, as a history of non-standard interior items and baths. But to a lesser extent, they were described as institutions for healing, and even less so as places of worship with their own methods of washing and bath therapy. The baths found in the treatises of that time are, although public, but for the most part urban public.

It would be wrong not to talk about those baths that were described not in books, but in the notes of travelers and historians, whose eyes were directed to the people. After reading their notes, we begin to understand that the bath bath - strife! The gilded baths of the St. Petersburg baths and the black baths in the villages are the intersection of two worlds - two cultures of one people.

In most peasant households there were no baths at all! People bathed from spring to autumn in lakes and rivers, they went to the bath at best once every 2-3 months, or even less often - before big holidays - 2-3 times a year. And these are not empty words - this is the result of historical research on the life and living conditions of the population of Tsarist Russia in the pre-revolutionary period.

Russian bath - embellished a little, added a little

What do they say today? Today, the gurus of the bath business are dressed in embroidered shirts, hang amulets, icons and soar with a broom massage for a dime, putting the Russian bath on a commercial channel, turning whipping brooms into a strictly regulated training procedure. Not all, of course, but the market for such services is replete with the presence of “pros from steam”. Such a social realism of the era of nanotechnology. (Remember the Soviet films, where young collective farmers drove around the fields in the dust in white dresses and with heels, and the men in chrome boots ran all the time next to the accordions?)
In order to somehow show the Russian bathhouse from the other side, and such, undoubtedly, is present - I will upload photos along the way of the text. Here, for example, hard-working peasants at the log house (even very possibly - baths) are waiting for something in the evening. Certainly not stretching with a broom, stretching across, movements along the lymphatic flows and not opening the chakras, etc. They would just wash off the dirt in this black bath.
And, after all, these were the baths of the main population of Russia in the periods before the revolution and up to the war of 41 years. There was no Golden Ring then, but the outback lived on.

The current reenactors of the bath business of the last century create modern baths with interiors of a century ago, sharpened by the appearance of a poor peasant's log cabin, in which the nobility in white shirts with kvass and bagels took place near the samovar. That samovar, which was not in 70% of the families of post-revolutionary Russia.

Russian bath from time immemorial...!? What centuries?! Not earlier than in 1934-1936, baths were considered primarily as dual-use objects. And the main purpose is disinfection military points in case of war, ready to receive the infected and wounded, etc. Nobody hid this, and the names of the baths were given as to prison institutions - by numbers!

Home baths of the first half of the 19th century were rare and, oddly enough, appeared in women's educational institutions, prisons and military schools. Regardless of jurisdiction, they were classified as “home”.
In 1821, one of the baths of the Academy of Arts (architect A.A. Mikhailov) was located right in the drawing room, in which they also washed at the allotted time.

Baths designed by architect Zakharov (1809) were located in the brewery to provide centralized water supply.
Baths in Tsarskoye Selo by architect K.I. Rossi of 1850-1852 is one of the most famous in St. Petersburg, but despite this, due to the special interior, they were considered baths with a big stretch.

In 1815, there were 480 houses with bathrooms in the whole of St. Petersburg, which had nothing to do with what is now being popularized and elevated to the rank of tradition. These were oriental-style bathrooms. Access to them was for a very narrow circle of people of the upper class. 480 bathrooms in St. Petersburg!

And what do we have away from Peter? And on the outskirts was what is shown in the photo. Life of a peasant yard. What kind of bath with bagels are we talking about!? What kind of “from time immemorial” or “long since” can we talk about a bath in a white way?!!! Do these people look like those who take a steam bath at the samovar on Saturday?

But in the photo below - the life of workers living in the city from the factory. At best, they washed "in a bath" once a month, or even less often. Well, if the plant had its own baths. But that was rare.

With a samovar and bagels? On Saturdays? With kvass?

Somehow, against the background of these documentary photos, those baths that look at us from the Internet pages of hundreds of sites dedicated to the customs, traditions and rituals of the Russian bath do not appear. To say that they are all lies would be wrong. The first thing to do is to stop using the term “from time immemorial” relative to the bath, which we love.

Yes, there were baths, but few, not everywhere and not in this form.

The construction of a huge part of the baths falls on the second half of the 19th century - only one and a half hundred years ago. Massively this accounted for the urban small population. Public baths of that time were more like high-speed washing facilities than SPA salons with herb brooms. The capacity of the baths was supposed to be 350-400 people per hour. Usually, they could not cope with such a regime and queues of city workers and visitors lined up for the baths.

Departing from the topic of history, I simply recall my childhood in the 70s, when the city bath in our city (two baths) with a population of 85-90 thousand worked in a constant queue mode 4 days a week.

The real revival of private baths began not so long ago - about 20-30 years ago, as soon as the "sunset" of communal property came and the era of entrepreneurship began. It was from that time that new baths began to include all the best that we know about the bath and, of course, they were designed not so much for washing and hygiene at great speed, but for getting pleasure, relaxation, unusualness and extravagance, sometimes healing (any hygienic procedure is a recovery). The inability to have your own private bath left a bad imprint on this "miracle with brooms." Wealthy people turned baths into an object of show, chic, a commercial attribute, and sometimes outright brothels.
Here they are - those who bathed in the baths, these are the people, and not a dozen peacocks in marble rooms. And the history of Russian baths is the history of the people, and not separate sketches of European architecture in large cities.

Thank God, there is a whole army of bathhouse enthusiasts who pulled it out of the “status-expressive baths” band and transferred it to the “health” group. Of course, like a hundred years ago, the Russian bath makes one marvel at the variety of forms of taking and soaring. The best and unique traditions of steam baths, which have surprised us so much and will continue to surprise us, have been revived. The main thing is not to distort history.
And what is the real Russian bath, the one that is folk? To be continued…

Since ancient times, a person visited a bathhouse in order to maintain hygiene and improve his body. But today it is difficult to find specific facts of what prompted the ancient people to create a bathhouse. Maybe it was a drop that fell on a red-hot furnace and turned into a small ball of steam. Or maybe it was a well-thought-out idea of ​​ancient scientists. But regardless of this, man has known about the steam room since ancient times, as evidenced by archaeological finds.

Bathhouse at all times was for a Russian person not a banal bathing place, but a sacred place where both body and soul were cleansed. After all, the spiritual state for the Russian people is more important than the physical form. People who first visited the steam room were delighted with the sensations they received and claimed that they were born again, having become a few years younger in body and soul.

The first mention of the Russian bath

The first steam rooms began to appear in ancient Greece. But already in those distant times, their main purpose was not the banal adoption of water procedures. For the Greeks, the bath was a place where they usefully spent their free time. Here people rested and talked with friends and even went in for physical education. The ancient bathhouse was somewhat reminiscent of a club of people of interest. But even then, a person noticed the unique healing and prophylactic properties of the steam room. And the bath got its name for a reason. Translated from the ancient Greek language, the word "bath" is interpreted as "the expulsion of pain and sadness."

The history of the emergence of the Russian bath in Russia began later than in European countries. But our people also used it not only for washing. From time immemorial, it has been a place where various medical procedures were carried out, which filled a person with health and good infusion. According to historical data, clergy were engaged in healing in Russia, and this prompted the Grand Duke Vladimir to issue a decree on transferring the bath to the possession of the church.

What was the first Russian steam room?

The history of the appearance of a village bath began with a small and very low wooden building, which heats up quickly and keeps heat inside for a long time. Partially, the walls of the steam room sank underground or crumbled with soil. This helped to keep the room warm, for quite a long time without underflooding.

In the construction of the first baths, the most affordable and cheapest material at that time was used - wood. A birch or linden frame was usually used, which has a pleasant aroma and resistance to moisture. The construction of a structurally simple wooden structure was carried out by experienced carpenters who passed on the secrets to their children. And it has become a family tradition. The very first "black bath" had the simplest design, and consisted of two separate rooms.

The washing and steam room was the main one and a firebox was built in it, where a water tank was located on one side, and wild stones were laid out on the other, which, after warming up, were the main heat source. The steam room was equipped with special equipment and had the following features:

1. A mandatory attribute of the steam room was a shelf - a long bench made of wood, which was placed opposite the stove-heater next to the wall. She served as a sunbed on which a person was when he steamed. Benches for bath equipment were installed in the steam room. They were made of wood, and usually it was linden or birch.
2. Basins made of copper or metal, various ladles, washcloths made of natural plant materials, brooms and other bath utensils were used as bath equipment. The detergent was usually ash or liquid soap. In the corner there was always a tub made of wood, which was filled with cold clean water.
3. In the corners of the room, bunches of medicinal herbs were always hung, emitting a pleasant aroma. Usually it was thyme, mint and other forbs. Plus, herbs were used as soft brooms, which were used for healing massage.

Additionally, a dressing room was set up in the bath - a small room where people left their clothes and other things that should not be wetted. Here they took a breath after taking water procedures. A vat filled with kvass, beer or another, primordially Russian drink was installed in the dressing room, without which a visit to the bath would lose its meaning. Kvass was used not only for drinking, but also poured on stones or steamed brooms in it. For convenience, coarse felt material or hay was always spread on the floor in the dressing room.

What is the difference between a bath in white and a bath in black?

The creation of the Russian bath in white, in Russia, happened later than the steam room in black, but thanks to its convenience, it gradually replaced its predecessor. The first steam rooms did not have a chimney through which smoke was removed, and fresh air was let in through a periodically opening door. In such a steam room, smoke accumulates indoors, which creates a lot of trouble. Later, a white-bath appeared, where a heater equipped with a chimney to remove exhaust gases from the combustion of firewood acted as a heat source.

To heat a bath in a black way, people had to do a lot of unpleasant things:

• after the end of the furnace in the bath, the door was closed, and the floor was washed from soot with water;
• the room, before being used for its intended purpose, had to be kept for at least a quarter of an hour so that it would dry out and gain heat;
• then they removed the remains of the coals and released the first steam, which washed away the soot from the heater, and then proceeded to water procedures.

The bath, in a black way, is very uncomfortable in the firebox and it will not be possible to heat it up during washing. But on the other hand, acrid smoke eliminates any smell from previous visitors, which cannot be achieved in modern steam rooms. This feature was very loved and appreciated by our ancestors.

In addition to the black bath in those ancient times, there was another curious way to take a steam bath right in the Russian stove, which was in every village house. The stove was well heated, and straw was spread on the bottom. After that, the man climbed inside, taking with him a basin of water, which was poured over the red-hot oven walls. Having taken a steam bath, a person went out and doused himself with ice water. Such a strange pleasure could afford even the elderly, who were pushed inside the stove on a specially prepared board.

Bath is a way of life and a tribute to traditions

The history and traditions of the Russian banya is a way of life that accompanied Russian people from the day they were born until the day they died. No other world culture has taken a bath, as they did in Russia. It became an obligatory cult, which was held at regular intervals.

1. Not a single solemn event took place without a bath. A random guest in the house, first of all inviting the owner to the steam room and then to the table. This tradition is even reflected in Russian folk tales and ancient chronicles.
2. Any bachelor or bachelorette party has never passed without a visit to the steam room. And even after the legalization of relations, couples were required to take water procedures every time they had marital intimacy, especially before going to church.
3. The bath was visited by people with various diseases, especially colds, runny noses, coughs or problems with the joints. The therapeutic effect of a seemingly simple procedure produced a powerful effect on the human body, expelling any ailment.
4. Regular visits to the steam room was an excellent preventive measure to prevent various diseases. In the steam room, all the cells of the human body were charged with energy, which made them function in a new way, starting the regeneration process. And thanks to a sharp change from high to low temperature, when immediately after the steam room people dived into the hole or into the snow, the body was hardened and immunity improved.

The history of the origin of the Russian bath in Russia is reflected in folk art and documented in chronicles. Another great Russian historian engaged in the study of the customs and traditions of the peoples of ancient Russia - N.I. Kostomarov repeatedly wrote in his written works that people went to the steam room every day not to take a steam bath or improve their health, but for their own pleasure. He also wrote that steaming in a steam room for the Russian people is an original rite that has never been violated by either children or adults.

Russian banya conquered Europe

Peter the Great contributed to the wide spread of the tradition of bathing in Russia. He issued a decree that exempted the owners of the steam room from paying the fee. During the reign of Peter the Great, a huge number of public Russian baths appeared in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where people gathered for a pleasant pastime. They were intended for Merchants, the intelligentsia and the nobility. Today, a unique Sandunovskaya steam room, more than two centuries old, has been preserved in Moscow.

Foreigners who visited ancient Russia noted with amazement that Russians were accustomed to washing themselves often, which is not inherent in the peoples of other countries. In reality, there was a tradition to bathe every week on Saturday. But foreigners, who rarely took water procedures, believed that Russians visit the steam room all the time. A well-known German traveler wrote that in Russia there is not a single settlement, be it a big city or a small village, where there is no bathhouse.

In European countries, the custom to bathe began to revive thanks to Peter the Great and his army, which terrified the French by the fact that the soldiers soared in the bathhouse, after which they dived into the hole, despite the fact that it was very cold outside. And when in 1718 Peter the Great gave the order to build the first steam room on the banks of the magnificent Seine River, the Parisians were simply horrified. And the construction of the bath itself aroused the interest of onlookers who came to stare at this miracle.

What is the secret of the popularity of the Russian bath?

According to most researchers of Russian history and its traditions, the secret of the bath is very simple: it cleanses the spirit and body, filling them with pure thoughts and health. And the architecture of an uncomplicated building is a standard room made of wood, which houses a stove-heater, which allows people with any level of income, both a rich nobleman and a simple poor farmer, to have a steam room.

Considering the special attachment to the bathhouse and the demand for the ritual of steaming throughout history, it can be argued with confidence that the Russians strove to be clean, tidy, healthy and with a clear mind. And the bath helped them in this. The tradition of going to the bathhouse resembles a simple everyday phenomenon and at the same time is a culture and even a way of life for Russian people. This custom has been passed down and will continue to be passed down from generation to generation, remaining a sign of belonging to the Russian people.