Photo: Kaisa Äärmaa
The smoke sauna tradition of Võru County in southeastern Estonia is considered distinctive and unique.
It was added to the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2014. It is marketed as the central sauna experience destination in Estonia celebrating the Year of the Sauna and is the subject of an Oscar-nominated Estonian film. Savvusanna sõsarad theme and setting, Yle reports.
Finns are also known to be sauna lovers, and such enthusiasm raises questions. What’s so special about Võrumaa sauna culture? And how does it differ from the Finnish sauna tradition, which six years later was included in the UNESCO list?
On Monday, Visit Estonia and the Estonian Embassy in Helsinki organized an event for media representatives where the Estonian sauna tradition was presented.
In the film shown at the beginning of the event Savvusanna sõsarad there are many familiar elements. A small group of women sweat in a dark, smoky sauna. Discussions primarily revolve around the pressure of looking young, dating experiences and health. Someone talks about how he came out, another talks about her breast cancer.
Towards the end the topics of discussion become even more in-depth: domestic violence, stillbirth, rape. Meanwhile they whistle and walk into the ice hole.
Directed by Estonian Anna Hints Savvusanna sõsarad is very reminiscent of the film “Men’s Exchange” (2010) by Joonas Berghäll and Mika Hotakainen, in which Finnish men share their touching life experiences on the sauna stage.
Hints’ directorial work won an award at the Sundance Film Festival in the United States, and the film was selected as Estonia’s official Oscar entry. Marianne Ostrat, the film’s producer who attended the Helsinki media event, believes that although the film is more about people than about the sauna, it is the sauna and the associated image of a safe environment that is the main reason for which the main characters in the film dared to tell their biggest secrets in front of the camera.
The film was shown throughout the year, as well as in Europe, for example in Hong Kong and the United States. It will also premiere in Finland on Friday.
The cornerstone of Estonian sauna culture, sauna woman and sauna entrepreneur Eda Veeroja runs a farm in Võrumaa, which is visited by around 8,000 tourists a year. Veeroja saunas each according to a traditional formula, which always lasts for hours.
Such guided sauna experiences represent the main difference between Estonian and Finnish sauna culture. Finns are used to heating and steaming their own saunas, but in Estonia it is very common to trust your sauna master.
It was also part of the media event. The journalists were taken from the cinema by bus to Jätkäsaari, where Veeroja began his meditation session on the tables of the Uusi Sauna stage.
The session included incantations, chants, witch drumming, calm breathing, gesticulating and steam throwing. On the Veeroja farm, salt, honey and even ash are rubbed into the skin during the sauna. After the sauna you eat smoked meat in the smoke sauna.
The president of the International Sauna Association, Risto Elomaa, reveals further nuances of Võruma sauna culture in the locker room. He says he has made several sauna trips to southern Estonia. The Mooska farm managed by Veeroja is also familiar to him.
According to Elomaa, it is customary in Võrumaa that upon entering the sauna one is greeted with spells that honor the spirit of the sauna. According to Elomaa, the biggest difference with Finnish sauna culture is the abundant and versatile use of steam.
In Estonia, and especially in Võrumaa, you never go to the sauna without getting angry. In Finland, however, it is quite rare, says Elomaa.
In Estonia not only birch is used as a material for wood production: oak wood is typical, for example. The viha sauna tradition is more versatile in Estonia than in Finland.
Rain Pärnaste, sauna master of the Estonian company Saunaelamus, gives an example: he shows how oak wood is first whistled traditionally, sometimes harder, sometimes softer. Finally, the whistler’s body is gently caressed from head to toe and vice versa.
The attitude towards nudity is also different. At the Helsinki press conference, sauna-goers are shamefully covered in bathing suits, but the Võrumaa tradition involves going to the sauna naked, with all genders and generations mingling happily. And this, in turn, is related to perhaps the most important rule of the sauna, known both in Estonia and Finland.
Since you are naked in the sauna, it is customary to leave positions of power and titles in the locker room. In the sauna, gentlemen and fools, masters and workers, rich and poor all sit together at the same tables and do the same thing.
Both in Estonia and Finland.
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2023-12-07 22:25:42
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