“One of the cliches about Finland is sauna. When I’m traveling and meeting new people from different parts of the world, our first conversation goes like this:
- “Where are you from?”
- “Finland”
- “Sauna!”
Yes, sauna. Sauna has been very strong part of Finnish culture: its very good place to disinfect body by peeling old skin. During early Great Depression in Finland, sauna was good place to wash away fleas. One good part of early saunas were that they didn’t need any electricity to heat up, so families had to collect enough wood before winter hit towns and villages. Wood was needed to heat the whole house too - especially in countryside. Wood was important element.
Nowadays most of saunas work with electricity. Saunas are also places to spend time with friends, some companies have so called sauna evenings where they make decisions about their companies future.
This May I was visiting Finland and went to a outdoor party. My friend started to talk about sauna they built in 2012 in Sompasaari - abandoned harbor area. The location is nice, you can go to sauna and then dip your body in the sea while having a beautiful view of Helsinki.
He also told me that they didn’t spend much money for building Sompasauna - as founders of this sauna named it. The story of Sompsauna starts from a stove, that was found randomly. Woods to build up Sompasauna’s walls were kindly asked to get for free from building leftovers.
Group of friends built Sompasauna when they had free time, and one day this secret sauna opened its doors to anyone who just knew about it. Using Sompasauna was free of charge and when thinking about nature - this sauna sure was nature friendly! I red from my friends status on Facebook, that even Finnish politician and Finland’s Minister in Culture Paavo Arhinmäki was seen cycling towards Sompasauna. And not for viewing, I bet he went to enjoy the heat.
Then once again the dark could settled down over Helsinki on second week of July. This time it made a small tornado and sucked this cultural sauna inside it. Metaphorically it went like this, but in real life the tornado was The Real Estate Department of Helsinki. Why? From The Real Estate Department of Helsinki the reason was that it didn’t treat people equally. Though, Sompasauna was open to anyone who knew it.
End of Sompasauna - that heated so many peoples body and soul came to its end. But this was actually third end. Now there’s a new sauna available, but it’s not kept by same people who invented the original Sompasauna. I had to ask about this from my friend who’s one of the formers. These new sauna keepers have even got permission to run their sauna in the spot. Well, at least there’s a sauna.. though idea was stolen from originals which brakes my heart. ”
I never had the opportunity to visit Sompasauna, but my friends friend took some pictures and said it’s ok to use them:
http://www.hurmio.org/~joha/sompasaunamedia/sompasauna-media-photo-02-summer-2012.jpg
Sauna is a very good reason for me to come back to Finland and stay long enough next time :)