should not be surprised if an older sauna-goer asks me to scrub their back, says Alexander Lembke, as he talks me through the workings of Finland’s oldest working public sauna. “You just do it, help them. There you can see how deeply rooted the sauna is here in the community.” Usually Lembke, who describes himself as a “sauna classicist”, undertakes heating responsibilities (a seven-hour process that begins at 7am) at Rajaportti sauna in Tampere naked. But seeing as he has visitors, today he is dressed in swimming trunks and sliders, accessorised with a multitude of maritime-themed tattoos.
I have come to Finland to learn about its sauna culture, a tradition so valued that in 2020 it was inscribed on the Unesco list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity. My starting place, Tampere, one-and-a-half hours by train north of Helsinki, has about 60 public saunas in a city of around 250,000 inhabitants, earning it the title of “sauna capital of the world”.
Unlike in other countries, where saunas are usually marketed as an expensive activity for the few, in Finland they have a far more everyday role. Many people have saunas in their homes; lots of older Finnish people were even born in saunas. But they are also considered a sacred space and a place to find community as well as peace. Finland has topped the world happiness report rankings for the past six years – could its sauna culture have anything to do with it?
Built in 1906, Rajaportti is one of a kind but not flashy. About 15 minutes before opening time a queue forms outside the door, and at 2pm people stream in through the ticket booth, then head to the male or female changing rooms. Soon the sauna – one room divided by a wall with separate sections for men and women (young children can crawl between parents under the gap) – is echoing with voices and the sound of steam from the sauna rocks.
But its function as a sauna is just one aspect of the role it plays in daily life. From therapy room to pub, refuge, debating society and creche, it’s a place where people of all ages connect. Elderly regulars check up on each other if they don’t turn up at their usual sauna time, and young children play in bathtubs on the floor.
Some people come straight from the office for an hour to wash away the stresses of the day on the way home, while others spend hours there with friends over drinks. It can also be a place to feel less alone with your thoughts. One regular told Lembke that he comes to the sauna to “share his melancholy”.
While some saunas have rules governing topics of conversation – discouraging, for example, discussion of politics, business and religion – at Rajaportti, everything goes. “You have left wing, you have right wing, you have punks, you have architects, you have artists; everyone sits up there. And they talk, and they drink. And of course it gets heated sometimes,” says Lembke. “This is how it should be.”
Being based in Stockholm as the Guardian’s Nordic correspondent, and with half my extended family in Sweden, where bada bastu (Swedish for “taking a sauna”) is a popular pastime, this is not my first sauna experience. I have happy childhood memories of darting between sauna and the brackish water of the Stockholm archipelago on a summer evening. On a recent trip to Iceland, on the night of the women’s strike, I went to a sauna in a caravan where, at 15-minute intervals, we were invited to take a dip in the North Atlantic. When a feminist anthem came on, the caravan burst into spontaneous song. But in Finland not only are saunas plentiful – an estimated 3.3m for a population of 5.6 million – but the culture around them is unique. Having originated to fulfil a very practical need for heat and sanitation, the sauna’s significance in Finnish society now goes far deeper – perhaps even to the essence of what it is to be human.
At the heart of it all is löyly (pronounced low-lu), a word that literally translates as steam or heat. But that doesn’t come close to capturing it. Lembke compares the experience of good löyly to an intense hug. “It’s a spiritual thing,” he says. Every sauna has a different löyly and its quality can vary in the same sauna from day to day, or even hour to hour as the heat drops. “If guests come to the sauna they are my hardest critics, and if the löyly’s not good then they are a little bit sad.”
The concept of löyly is something I only begin to grasp when I go into the sauna. After washing with buckets of fresh water from a basin on the bottom floor, I ascend the stairs to the top level, where the temperature is about 80C. As the men next door pour water on the stones, I start to feel the löyly. The taste is aromatic and slightly bitter, a bit like green tea, and it smells like birch. But the intensity of the “hug” is almost overwhelming, and after a few minutes I have to go outside. This is the best part, standing in my acorn-shaped sauna hat, towel and sliders, looking around at the snow and feeling the cold rain on my skin. Skin tingling, chest and temples gently pulsating, I feel entirely in the moment.
“We’re going to spend our evening with our families, so it’s just a nice way to start the weekend,” says social worker Anita Kontukoski, 49, who is sitting on a bench outside, catching up with a friend. She has an electric sauna at home, but lately, with energy prices so high, it has been more convenient to come here. Usually, she comes on a Friday afternoon straight from work. “That’s the best way to start your free time and forget all the stresses of the week.” During the summer months, her friend Mia Surakka, 49, a nature photographer, saunas every day in her summer cottage, but in the winter she goes once a week. “Sauna for Finnish people is really important; for most, they couldn’t live without it.”