This is a joke. The author is responsible for the opinions expressed in the text.
Emotionally speaking, January is the longest month of the year. In January it’s like the days never end; When you run out of energy and money, the month has barely gotten off the ground. And so it goes on.
This year in particular, the weeks after the New Year were unbearably cold – at least in Kiev, we reported on that. I have memories of the winter of 1986 when it was minus thirty in Uppsala.
If the Russians hadn’t taken advantage of the winter weather for their war in Ukraine, the cold would have been easily beaten with wool socks, Merino long johns, and hot tea. By the way, there are beautiful varieties here such as buckwheat tea and sea buckthorn-thyme tea.
But the unrelenting cold bothers me, because the Dnieper River is frozen over. It affects my routines, it’s a small thing of course, but still I understood that it is useful to have a life balance and not just get involved in negotiations and being on the front line.
Now I think about the ice and that I have to walk through the ice on the Dnieper.
Since some of us bathe at work, the agreement requires us to take an outdoor bath at least once a month. We have been here for several years. You can stay in the water for a long time if you want, but we’re nice so a quick second is fine. Self-torture is allowed for others.
But even though the month seems to last forever, the days pass and I start to worry about the January slump. It’s frozen solid, the temperature is minus fifteen. I happen to be looking for sauna places with outdoor baths.
The steps are slippery, but I dive in and keep my promise.
And so I set off on the thirty-first and very last day. The sauna is large, steamy and hot. It’s full of people. Above, a man lies on his stomach with tattoos all over his body and is being whipped with a thick leaf brush made of birch and oak by another man who occasionally douses himself with cold water.
A kind woman understands that I’m new, She whispers that I just must Try the steam treatment with a rusk whip – and soon the aroma lesson will begin, you will see!
The steps down into the ice shaft are slippery like soap, I immerse my body and keep my promise.
There is a spacious bar between the sauna area and the entrance. The armchairs also function as smart wardrobes: if you fold down the backrest, there is a clothes hanger there, and there is space for a stack of clothes under the seat. Men in white bathrobes wash down handfuls of nuts with cold beer.
New month, now. New possibilities.
Read other home series, for example Sanna about life in Kiev in the middle of winter without electricity.
