Checking out
For my final day in Moscow, I have made a list of the things I still wanted to see and try to be a bit more organized. I could spend another whole day wandering Red Square because those guys are out there dancing again and really what more could you want? I had to pack everything up and check out of the hotel, so here I do the muscle work of putting as much as I can squish into the roller suitcase. It’s carry-on size, but I’ll be checking it. Then I put everything I’ll need on the plane: clothes to change into, electronics, batteries, etc, in my large backpack. And I leave the small pack empty because today I am finally going to do a bit of souvenir shopping. By the time everything is packed, I’ve checked out of the room, and my bags are left with the hotel, it’s 11 a.m. and I am starving.
Breakfast
I leave the hotel and get out of the enhanced security zone, taking the metro to Old Arbat street, which is now a pedestrian street full of cheesy souvenir shops and cafes and bars. I arrive and the street is decorated with lights and it’s just starting to wake up, a few tourists wandering here and there. The costumed characters, so ubiquitous in Saint Petersburg, make an appearance here. I stop at a cafe for breakfast. There is a cafe, called Chocolatnitsa (or Shokoladnitsa) that has branches everywhere. When I was looking at city maps before I left home, I saw them everywhere. Like Starbucks in the US, this cafe has managed to corner the market. Because of that, I had decided not to bother. It’s a chain restaurant, after all. But finally my curiosity got the best of me and I gave it a shot. Now I can see why there are so few Starbucks here. The idea of coffee is so different from what we are used to. This is almost a Coldstone Creamery of coffee. Coffee comes as a latte or cappuccino with flavored syrup, topped with whipped cream, and the whipped cream is the base for any toppings you order. Cookies, mints, caramel and chocolate sauce. They also have a large selection of teas, as tea is much more popular here than coffee, and some hot cocoas. I get a waffle cookie latte and a ham and cheese omelette wrap. The coffee is delicious, as sweet and decadent as it looks, and probably 2 days worth of calories. The wrap left much to be desired, as it was clearly pre-made, sitting in a refrigerator, and tossed very briefly into a panini press, served still icy cold in the middle. Then I ordered a slice of ‘Moscow torte’. The description says that this cake is made of crumbled meringue layers with caramel frosting between the layers and topped with white chocolate ganache. I’m not sure if this is actually some famous Moscow dessert or if Shokoladnitsa has willed it into being, but the cake is very unique. It looks like a multi-layered cake, but the layers are made of crumbled meringue, so when you bite into it or cut it, it just comes apart in clumps. It almost has the texture of rice krispy treats, with the crunchy meringe bits playing the part of puffed rice. It’s delicious, but very rich. The caramel sauce is the type made from condensed milk, so it’s super heavy.
KFC
After breakfast, I hit the street and do my shopping. I find a few souvenirs, slowly filling my empty backpack. The street is nice and relaxed, but it is just tourist shop after tourist shop of the same things. I reach the end of the pedestrian path and that is where Old Arbat Street meets New Arbat Street, which is a real street with cars. There is a huge shopping district a couple of blocks up the road, so I start walking that way. The weather is still dry and I’ve been coughing all morning, so I decide to find something to drink to sooth my throat. I didn’t see any mini marts, so I stopped into the only place I saw, a KFC nestled between 2 banks. I got to the counter and ordered a pepsi. The worker says ‘Ok, what else?’ I tell her just the pepsi. She hands me a menu. Nope, still just want the pepsi. “Burger?” she offers. <<sigh>> It’s a bit incomprehensible to go to KFC and not order fried chicken, I guess.
Shopping
I keep walking and get the the largest books store, the House of Books. I wandered around for quite some time, hoping to find some Russian cookbooks in English. But to no avail. All of the books were in Russian. But it was a fun store, half book store, half craft store, with tons of kits for little kids to learn to make things, even a pottery wheel! I found a couple of cute things and snagged them before continuing up the street. Now I am at the shopping district and there are all kinds of things, outdoor snowboard practice, pop-up shops, just more fun New Year themed things to check out. There is also a Perekrestok supermarket, which I go into and pick up some cookies and candies for the office as well as a large container of peach juice. I’ve long since finished my pepsi and need something to calm my coughing. I walk around the rest of the day sipping a liter box of peach juice. Classy. By now, it is getting late in the day and my pack is getting full so I make my way back to the hotel. I have a banya appointment tonight and since I have some chocolate in my pack, I didn’t want to take it with me to the likely very warm steam room.
Back to the hotel
It’s now 5 p.m. and the crowds at Red Square are packing in. The security checks are in full force and now I have a full backpack to try to get back to my hotel. Of course the guy wants to take out all the cookies, wand the backpack to see if there are weapons in it. Then he sees my liter of peach juice and asks if it’s open. I show him it’s almost empty. He asks if there’s alcohol in it. I tell him no, and repeat that I’m just trying to go to my hotel. He lets me go and I drop off my bag. I sit at the fancy hotel bar and have a coffee and a pavlova before trying to get through the crowds and go to the banya.
Getting to the banya
I’m not sure if there’s a different protocol for the safety checks dependent on how large the crowd is or if they just change it every day to make sure any problematic people can’t learn the weaknesses in the system. But this time is the first time that I’ve gone out of the hotel and the metro station right outside is blocked off from all entrances. You can’t get in. Well…now I have to walk to where the next metro stop is. Here I am, thinking I’ll get to the banya like half an hour ahead of my appointment, hang out in the locker room, take my time changing. No, I’m like a salmon swimming upstream looking for the next metro station. I find it, but have to go a block down the street to get around the barricades. I take the metro a few stops to a less populated area and start walking to find the banya. It’s almost a kilometer from the station. I walk and, at the address, there is a gated courtyard entrance, with the pedestrian gate open. I walk in and there is a row of shops, including the banya, with an ice rink at the end and tons of people skating and having fun. But the doors to the shops are all on the other side. And the ice rink is blocking the way around. I end up walking circles around the courtyard before giving up and going into a food store. I ask the lady at the counter where the banya is, and her face lights up and she’s like “Banya! This way!” and she takes my hand and leads me through her store, telling me something about banyas, and lets me go out the back door of her store to get to the other side of the building and into the banya. So friendly. She walked me all the way to the banya door.
Banya
Private banya
I arrived at the banya at 7:01. Rrrr. At least I’m on time. But so much for showing up early and relaxed. The banya is set up with 2 entrance doors. Each door leads into a full banya set-up: a hot sauna, a room for water treatments, and the lounging room, plus a normal bathroom and a little coat room. I walk in and am greeted by a lady who gives me slippers and shows me where to put my boots and coat. Then my banya attendant arrives. He speaks English and tells me that I can leave all of my things here because we have the entire space in privacy, and the lady locks the door behind me. So I leave my purse and other belongings there as well.
Now, I had scheduled this to have a place to relax before going to the airport. My flight is at 5 a.m. and instead of getting a hotel room, I’ve scheduled my ride to the airport at 2 a.m. At this point, after the first banya experience, I feel like I know what’s up. I even considered canceling it because it’s honestly not that relaxing. Well, I am so glad I didn’t, and I will explain this super-fancy banya experience because it was pretty amazing.
Round 1 – Fir and birch
So step one is changing into a robe, relaxing in the lounge room where there is tea, cold water, cookies and honey and jam, and a choice of either a rocking chair or straw bed to lounge in. I’m given 15 minutes to change, and then to relax and mellow out a bit before we begin. Then Alexei, my banya attendant comes in to lead me to the sauna. He is wearing a towel around his waist and a necklace with a large pendant. The rooms are lit only by candle, with lots of banya brooms decorating the walls, so without my glasses, it takes a while to adjust. He leads me into the steam sauna. We start with the sauna warming up. There are fir branches laid out into a bed, and I am instructed to lie on them face down. He dips another branch in cold water and, after placing a leaf over my ear so water doesn’t drip in, he places the branch over my head. Keeping my head cool makes the steam room much more comfortable. We begin with fir branches. He dips them in water, then splashes the water on the rocks, creating some steam, and waves them around over my body to get them to warm up to the temperature of the air and have the warm water drip on me. He gently taps and taps and brushes up and down and uses the branches to press on my feet and calves. It’s gentle and relaxing. This is for warming up the body. He has me roll over onto my back and dips the head covering in cold water again and lays it over my face before repeating the brushing on the other side. He then has me lie on my stomach again and wait 5 minutes as the sauna temperature is increased. We repeat this entire process with a birch broom.
Round 2 – oak
After my first round of sauna, we go out into the water room. There are 2 tubs filled with water. He tells me to get into the warm one. I get in and the water is tepid, relaxing after the warm sauna. He tells me that the water temperature is 38-40 C and it only feels tepid because of how warm the sauna is. Then he explains to me the next steps. I will have a 10 minute rest in the lounge, then we will continue heating up the sauna. This time it will be oak brooms. He says “Do you want to experience the world in totally new way?” Me: “Of course, whatever the plan is.” Ok, so the next time we do hot sauna, we will come back and I will get into the cold bath. I must get in quickly, dip my head under fully 3 times, and wait 2 minutes. He says stage 1 is that my hands and feet will feel prickly. Then my breathing and lungs will feel very cold, and then… here he struggles to translate. He says ‘Your head will have helicopters, you will feel … like alcohol’. Aha, helicopters. So I will stay in cold water until my head spins or I’m dizzy and then 15 more seconds in cold water, then back into the sauna.
So I go back to the lounging room and have some tea and cookies to gear up for the next assault on my senses. We go back into the sauna and repeat the broom process with the oak broom. And he leads me back to the room with the cold plunge. I get in, and follow instructions. Head under 3 times. Then sit, without moving. The more you move the colder the water feels. My breathing is cold, and I can feel the cold all the way down my throat. Then he says to let him know when the helicopters come. I dunno… I maybe felt a little dizzy. So I let him know and he timed out 15 more seconds and led me back to the sauna. Because I’m dizzy now, he has me put a hand on his shoulder as I walk and he leads me to the sauna room and lie on my back on the fir branch bed. And then…. I see what he means. Seeing the world in a whole new way. My head is totally spinning, but like not spinning, like a vertical scroll. Like the world is now guitar hero. He asks if the ceiling looks like railroad tracks and I say yes. The log ceiling, vertically scrolling does look like railroad. Seeing the world in a new way === tripping balls. I don’t know what physiological processes cause this, but I laid there for what felt like 10 minutes at least with my head just misinterpreting all sensory input. I will need to read more about this.
Round 3 – honey and linden
I am led back into the lounge room and given some sort of fermented honey drink. It was sweet, but tasted like a yeast bread starter. I lounge in the hay bed for 20 minutes. The final part of my treatment is a honey massage. We go back to the sauna and go through the broom process, this time with a linden broom. I am laying on my stomach, all hot and relaxed in the sauna and then he says “This is cold mineral water,” and begins pouring a bottle of cold fizzy water over me. Then says, very casually, “If you want screaming, screaming.” Hahahahaha. Simultaneously ‘I permit you to vocalize your displeasure’ and ‘I’m going to keep doing this’. I would aspire to this level of casual confidence and control. Then we go back to the water treatment room. I lie on a stone table and he massages honey all over my body. Then he sprinkles ground herbs all over the sticky honey and massages a bit. It’s almost like a salt scrub, but very aromatic. So much fragrance of herbs and fir tree and burning wood in the sauna. It’s very earthy and comforting. Then it’s back into the hot sauna for the last time as he uses another broom to strike and brush off the herbs and honey. Then it’s back to the stone table. He has me sit on the edge of the table and uses a sprayer to rinse off the remaining herbs. He keeps adjusting the water temperature and testing it on his chest before starting to wash my hair. He washes and conditions my hair, as we talk about the banya and he asks how I learned about the banya and if I’ve done one before. It’s very relaxing and once he finishes washing and conditioning my hair, he leads me back to the lounge room where I can have tea and get dressed at my leisure. He spends the next 20-25 minutes in the other rooms, cleaning, emptying the tubs, killing the sauna fire. I am completely dazed, like what just happened. It certainly didn’t feel like 3 hours, but wow. I am invigorated and ready to take on the world.
Dinner
Now I head out into the cold night air to find dinner at 10 p.m. I take the subway back to my hotel, but 1 stop past it and walk back to Arbat street, popular for its nightlife. Even so, most of the restaurants close around midnight. So I am happy to find one that is 24 hours, a Georgian restaurant, and I plan to sit there from 11:15 or so until 1:15 when I have to go meet my driver. The restaurant is called kinkalya, after kinkali, the giant dumplings I had a few days ago. So I go in and order the dumplings, but am told they are out for the night. :/ So instead I order a flatbread filled with cheese and an egg on top and it’s like a deep dish pizza with no tomato sauce. I have a Georgian soft drink made of pears, and listen to the lounge singer butcher Sting songs.
Final thoughts before the plane
I walk back to my hotel, so appreciative of all of the experiences I’ve had this month. It’s so important to see the world, to see that people all over the world are the same. We want the same things and share the same world. And when they aren’t the same, that’s the coolest part. When you can see or experience something you never would have thought of, when you realize that all of your thoughts and ideas and creative impulses are all totally informed by and limited to the things you’ve seen in your own sphere…. and that other people started from a totally different frame of reference. You learn about the things you take for granted, your own judgments, and get a greater understanding of how people see you, based on their cultural background. I’m glad I had this much time. It took me a while to get used to the communication style and norms here. If I hadn’t pushed through that uncomfortableness, I would have definitely missed out on the kindness and nurturing aspects of the culture.
