All steamed up in Vuosaari
By Emmi Sjöholm
The toughest and orneriest löyly-hounds have been given temporary bans at the local swimming hall sauna
The sauna is something so taken for granted in Finnish society that one might imagine the only social problems that could arise would involve culture-shock from nudity-challenged foreigners - “But they are all NAKED!” - or vice versa from purist Finns at the way foreigners behave in the place: “Did you see that? He was reading a NEWSPAPER in there!”
Not so, apparently. A group of men - all of them are men - with a penchant for very serious throwing of water onto the sauna stove (to create the löyly effect of elevated temperature by raising the humidity level) have caused a nuisance at the Vuosaari Swimming Hall, and a sense of uncertainty about what is right in the sauna and what is not.
The situation at the public sauna there has got so steamed up that the Vuosaari Sports Centre’s managing director Kalle Kallio has even had to ban some regulars, in order that the other bathers’ enjoyment and general safety would not be jeopardised.
Ruthless throwing-on-of-water is only one of the causes for complaint this year: there have been reports of swearing and insults, too.
“We have a lot of children in here. Something has to be done.”
Apart from handing out temporary bans on individual users, there is very little recourse, since for fairly obvious reasons it is not possible to monitor the sauna with CCTV cameras.
“And we can hardly have the police or the doorman paid to sit on the sauna benches to preserve order all day”, adds Kallio.
The swimming hall is part of the sports complex in this Helsinki suburb, so around 2,500 customers pass through the front foyer each day. It is impossible to recognise and monitor the sauna hotheads as they come and go through the front door.
The wildest members of the wild bunch have not been willing to give their names to the receptionists, so it has not been possible to issue them with an official ban, but Kallio hopes that some kind of agreement can still be reached to preserve harmony in the bathhouse.
Leo Pusa is the four-time winner of the World Sauna Endurance Championships in Heinola (one of those wacky summer events with which Finland crosses the international news threshold). He no longer frequents the sauna in Vuosaari, although the ban he received from there last winter was rescinded before Easter.
Pusa has also given up on wild “löylying” in public saunas.
“People know me, so I’m not the one any longer to grab the sauna ladle and throw water on. I don’t want to look like a complete nutjob.”
Pusa is upset that for a select few the sauna experience has gone a bit far.
“It’s just embarrassing when people throw a whole bucket of water on the stones at one go.”
He hopes that Kallio would set aside the smaller sauna on the premises as an official “löylysauna”, such that people would know they can expect to get a decent pasting if they go in.
The Vuosaari situation has got so overheated that the hard men have appealed to the Data Security Ombudsman about it.
The Ombudsman Reijo Aarnio says that sauna-goers do not need to be registered, but that it would be better if the men left their more spectacular löyly-throwing exploits for the sauna at home or at the summer cabin.
He is astonished at the friction that has been caused by the bathhouse goings-on.
“It seems rather over the top to me that the authorities should be summoned to help in a sauna dispute. There are ways and ways of limiting the amount of steam in the place, for instance by installing an automatic alarm in the ceiling panels to measure the level of steam.”
This is not a unique case: there have been earlier disputes over excessive löyly-throwing, for instance at the men’s sauna in the swimming hall on Helsinginkatu, and in the smoke-sauna at Kuusijärvi in Vantaa.
It seems we still have something to learn about the national pastime.