Real men don’t ration the water
By Juha Salonen
It has been a quiet morning in the so-called “real men’s sauna” at the Vuosaari Swimming Hall.
Pauli Nevalainen and Tuomas Kekki have bathed without any need for an urgent escape through the door. The heavy-handed löyly-throwers have not shown up today.
The two men have heard stories about such incidents.
“Yes, there have been times when it’s been so hot that there isn’t much room left down on the lower benches”, says Kekki.
“Once there was this guy who poured a whole bucket of water on the stones as he was leaving. I can assure you he wasn’t alone in heading out of the door. Fast. I don’t take part in these sorts of competitions - the old ticker won’t take it any more”, says Kekki, who comes to the hall two or three times a week.
Pauli Nevalainen is another regular visitor, a couple of times a week. He says he has not run into the serious löyly-artists.
“But one good thing about this hall is that you don’t get the boozing sort in here”, he says.
At the swimming hall’s cafeteria, Nikolai Nikanow is waiting for his wife, who is doing some water aerobics. He says that this spring he has two or three times come up against a situation where the water has been going on the sauna-stones with more than the usual regularity.
“A couple of times there were people in there throwing the stuff like there was no tomorrow. It got so bloody hot in there that there were only one or two people left on the upper benches ‘enjoying’ it. The others had all moved down closer to floor level or had voted with their feet and left altogether”, Nikanow reports.
There are two men’s saunas in the Vuosaari establishment. The “family sauna” is intended for normal mortals. The smaller of the two hot-rooms, the one for the real men, has been set aside for those who like it not just hot, but hotter than hell.
The ambient temperature in the sauna is kept above that in the family sauna, and the users make sure the humidity level stays high.
The heat is achieved by a special sprinkler, which squirts a shower of water onto the stones every time the temperature slips back down enough. The sensitivity of the sprinkler system can also be tuned to suit your own tastes, and people also manually throw on water, as in the normal sauna experience.
Nikanow has not taken part in any of the endurance competitions.
“There are a few of them who throw more than the others. My personal opinion is that since it is a public place, they could take a little more account of the other people in there when they are tossing the water on.”