The Southernmost Banya in the World



The banya!


This morning, I woke to the sound of Ian and Dale washing dishes from the VIPs the day before.  It was an amazing number of dishes.  I helped.  Velodia, who runs the guest house, came in while we were doing dishes, and thanked us profusely.  He was overcome with gratitude and expressed it continuously for an hour.  We then ate excellent leftovers for breakfast, including beef rolled with greens and cheese and then roasted.  It was accompanies by excellent bread, specially baked for us by the Russian base cook as well as fresh fruit.  Velodia promised us an extra special evening in the banya tonight.  I’ll write more about that after it happens. 

After breakfast, we looked at the clothes from Woolrich.  I snagged some nice long underwear.  The shirts and vest were too big for me.

I then helped Ian with generators and a jiffy drill, and spent the rest of the morning going through freeze dried food from the expedition 3 years ago.  I pulled out some veggies that I can use to make curry, as well as some sweets.  Here is one of our storage areas:



Gear from 2008 in a shipping container.


The banya in the evening was excellent.  Galina (who works for ALCI) and I went together.  It’s a high humidity sauna that has a large number of traditions and variants.  You wear a special wool hat.  The first time in the sauna (about 85°C), you spend 5 minutes and then cool off by splashing slightly warm water over your body.  Then it’s time for tea.  The second time, you can stay longer, and there are oak and ash branches that you can hit yourself with to increase circulation.  It feels great.  After cooling off again with cold water this time and drinking tea, it’s time for the other person to “massage” you with the branches.  After this last one, I used the outdoor cold water bucket to cool off.  It’s really neat, and cold.  However, I was warm enough that I didn’t stay cold for more than a minute or two.  We were then out of time because the men needed a turn.  Thus, we showered, dried off and then headed back to the guest house.  

Me with my hat and a cup of tea.

The bucket...
Galina & Velodia
Galina made bellini (crepes) for dinner, which are traditional to eat after a banya.  The head of the Russian base came to dinner, which started at 9:30 or 10.  It went long with Velodia playing the Russian version of acordian. 



(Written Nov 10 and 12 but posted in early 2012 with an "adjusted" date.)

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