In Finland, the sauna is a “state of mind”
In Finland, the sauna is a "state of mind”
This newspaper article has been published by the French newspaper “Le Monde” on the 17th January 2017.
Without this small room, which they could easily transform into an oven, the Finns would have had difficulty surviving the long winters. Until the Second World War, women gave birth there. The dead were washed there. It was a sacred place. When the Finns moved from the countryside to the city, they were in public saunas. Each building then acquired a collective sauna, before the apartments were equipped with private facilities.
Today, the country of 5.4 million inhabitants has more than two million inhabitants. "When I was a child, my building held a weekly session for women and then for men. Each family then had one hour reserved. I used to go with my mother every Saturday at 4pm," the photographer recalls. We meet him with family and friends. Any celebration is an opportunity to enjoy a good heat bath: Christmas, Saint John's Day, a birthday, a housewarming party, the signing of a big contract... President Urho Kekkonen, who ruled the country between 1956 and 1981, was a strong advocate of "sauna diplomacy", where he invited Soviet leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brejnev.
Traditionalists prefer the wood sauna, preferably a smoke sauna, without a fireplace. The others can live with the electric heat. "Not all Finns are crazy about it. But it's a habit. It's in our DNA," says Juuso Westerlund. A study conducted in Finland and published in the United States in 2015 showed that its regular use considerably reduces the risk of cardiovascular mortality.
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