A spiritual guide to Estonian smoke saunas

“The souls of our ancestors move easiest through water and steam, so when we heat a sauna, it’s not just for the living, but for those that have passed too,” says Eda Veeroja who’s bundled herself into a thick down jacket with a woollen hat pulled down over her ears to guard against the cold bite of January.

“Sauna is a liminal space where the conscious world of understanding ends and the in-between world begins,” she tells me. “Here it’s possible to come into contact with our ancestors and their wisdom. My mother, born 1924, was a healer, and she would always talk with her husband and my dead brother when she was in here. The practice was once hidden from foreigners’ eyes because of this sacred ability to communicate with an invisible world.”

Eda lives in the hamlet of Haanja, and in the grounds of her home, Mooska Farm, is a traditional smoke sauna. The sauna stands on the fringes of the forest, its square log walls slotted together as neatly as a gingerbread house. Snow flurries, gathering on the steps and roof. The world is muffled, save for the scrunching of our boots across the whiteness as we walk towards it.

We shed our clothes in an adjoining cabin, don conical felt hats, and scamper, stark naked, toward its heavy wooden door.

“First, we must greet it,” explains sauna-ceremony master, Kõrtsi Emand, tenderly touching the sturdy frame. “We see sauna as a family member. It may not have a face or a name, but we talk to it like you would a child, or a dog. We greet it on arrival and talk to the fire before lighting it, so it knows our purpose and why we need the sauna today.”

For most of us, saunas are simply a place to relax, but in Estonia, they carry far more meaning. They are a place of healing, communication and magic, and steeped in so much tradition that the practice was UNESCO-listed in 2014. There are some 3,000 saunas across the country and the recent film release of Smoke Sauna Sisterhood offers a poetic and powerful insight into the role they play in the lives of Estonians.

“In the old days, people believed what they felt and saw. Now they need religion or science to tell them. For a while, the church considered sauna too spiritual, so we had to hide it. Sauna reminds you to listen to yourself: The heat, your thirst, your intuition.”

- Kõrtsi Emand, sauna-ceremony master

After seeking permission to enter, we step into the sweet perfume of its alder wood-warmed walls. A mound of rocks, gathered from nearby fields, sit like a tomb on top of the fire while lined up by the small soot-smeared window are pottery bowls containing ash, salt, local honey and bundles of birch known as vihta.

Leaving the door open, Kõrtsi dips a ladle into a bucket of water and pours it onto the sizzling stones. She starts to sing a soft song full of sibilance. “I sing to invite in seven generations of ancestors. I sing to invite deeper breaths and to starting the ‘letting go,’” she says. “Saunas always mark the end of something: A season, a change in mindset, a life.”

For 20 minutes at a time, we sit on the tiered benches, the steam drawing pearls of sweat to the surface of our skin. Outside, night is drawing in and the snow still falls. Time seems to slow.

“In the old days, people believed what they felt and saw,” says Kõrtsi, stretching her limbs like a cat. “Now they need religion or science to tell them. For a while, the church considered sauna too spiritual, so we had to hide it. Sauna reminds you to listen to yourself: The heat, your thirst, your intuition.”

I feel a familiar twinge of pain in my left shoulder and rotate my arm slowly to try and ease it. Kõrtsi notices. ‘I’ve had it a long time,’ I explain. “Lie down on the bench,” she instructs. I lie on my stomach, head tilted to the side. She sits cross-legged in front of my head. I’m expecting her to rub my shoulder, but instead, she leans over and breathes in and out. Rocking gently, she begins to sing. The others leave the sauna. Kõrtsi starts to shout and howl, then breaks into a hacking cough as if she’s trying to expel something dark and sticky. “Get up and shake,” she says, so I rise and copy her as she bends in half and starts wiggling her arms. “OK, it’s gone now,” she says.

I stand up and rotate my shoulder, a little sceptically. The clicking has completely disappeared. “The pain wasn’t yours,” says Kõrtsi, matter of factly. “It came from a young girl in your past that was kicked.” She says it with such conviction and wisdom, I’m left, mouth agape, as she douses her body with a bucket of water.

We rub ash from the fire into our bodies, scratch salt across our skin, smooth honey along our limbs, and beat each other’s bodies with birch branches, before washing it all off with the snow gathered outside. Afterwards, we cool down in a side room, wrapped in blankets listening to a crackling fire, and sipping tea. My skin hums.

“‘What you’re feeling now cannot be described in one word,” says Eda. “When you emerge from the smoke sauna your body and soul are clean. There is no feeling of being lost anymore.”

“I wish sauna carried the same meaning at home,” I say.

“Some things have to be in the place they belong to—where the energy and power is,” replies Eda.

Pre-booking essential for experiences at Mooska Farm sauna

Hot springs to healing hammam: Sauna experiences around the world

Banya, Russia

The act of taking banya has been around before Russia became Russia. Ancient Greek historian Herodotus describes residents of the Black Sea enjoying these high-humidity communal saunas in his book Histories.

Used by all classes, they served as a social leveller and a venue for key life events, such as childbirth and death. Their importance was expressed in song, art and poetry—most notably the tale of old bearded Bannik, a mischievous sauna spirit. A felt hat is worn to protect the head from the intense heat of the sauna, where attendants beat your body with moistened bundles of veniki (birch or oak branches) to improve circulation, followed by immersion in a freezing plunge pool—or the snow.

Like Iceland, Japan sits on a volcanic fault line and has swapped saunas for naturally heated pools called onsen. The water can be any color—green, red, even black—as long as it’s more than 25°C and contains a handful of the prescribed list of 19 minerals.

Geothermal, Iceland

Iceland straddles the mid-Atlantic Ridge between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates—and it’s the two plates rubbing together that generates movement in the magma in the Earth’s crust. This heats the groundwater above, giving rise to bath-hot pools on the surface, and since  the early days, Icelanders haven’t sat in steam-filled rooms—they’ve soaked in mineral-rich waters instead.

Medieval saga historian, Snorri Sturluson, had his own private pool built, and 800 years later it’s still there at Snorrastofa, west Iceland. The idea of turning them into upmarket spas is relatively new and many are still rock-hewn pools found out in the countryside or on farms.

Hammam, Turkey

Modeled on Roman baths, these elaborate Islamic public bathing houses started cropping up in the 1400s as a place to cleanse before prayer, so many hammam are commonly found near mosques. Wood-fired furnaces beneath the baths produce steam, which is channelled through holes in the walls and floor into a central room characterized by a vaulted dome ceiling.

Beneath this lies a central circular slab of heated marble where a loincloth-clad attendant lathers the visitor with köpük (soap suds), vigorously exfoliates them with a kese/kassa (scrubbing glove) to remove dead skin, before dousing them with buckets of water. Afterwards, you don a bathrobe and move to the camegah (relaxation room) to sip tea.

Temazcal, Mexico

Practiced for thousands of years, temazcal (‘house of the heat’) is a form of sweat lodge usually led by a shaman, or temazcalero. Highly spiritual, they were used as cleansing rituals prior to war and as medicine to treat conditions ranging from depression to infertility.

Participants enter a dome made from mud, volcanic stone, or, more recently, cement, and sit in a circle while fire-heated volcanic rocks are placed in the center, while water, often infused with healing herbs, is poured over the top releasing steam. Ceremonies last around two hours and may involve chanting or singing. Some believe the dome shape is meant to replicate a woman’s womb, so that when you exit, you are reborn.

Onsen, Japan

Like Iceland, Japan sits on a volcanic fault line and has swapped saunas for naturally heated pools called onsen. The water can be any color—green, red, even black—as long as it’s more than 25°C and contains a handful of the prescribed list of 19 minerals.

For most of its 3,000-year-old history the practice was closely tied to the predominant religion of Shintoism, which deifies the wonders of nature, and baths were ‘konyoku’ (mixed-sex) until prudish Europeans arrived in the 20th century. Their use is steeped in etiquette; most still require full nudity, a shower before entering, and no towel should touch the onsen water. In the past, people with tattoos were turned away, but rules are being relaxed.

Hom Yaa, Laos

This rustic steam sauna known for cleansing the lungs and skin, fuelled by an open wood fire beneath a vat of water that’s been intensely infused with herbs such as lemongrass, basil, cinnamon, lime leaves, mint, rosemary and eucalyptus; in fact, the Hom Yaa is said to be the perfect steam bath as it uses 32 different botanicals. Guests are given a sarong to wear and sometimes, they’re offered yogurt, ground coffee or tamarind to apply to the skin, for extra glow and cleansing. To cool off after the steam bath, guests douse themselves with water taken from a large earthenware pot, followed by an invigorating massage and, afterwards, cups of relaxing muktam (fruit tea).

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