Black sauna (7 photos)

A black bathhouse is an ancient Russian bathhouse that was used by our ancestors for many, many years, and even now this type of bathhouse is still preserved in northern Russian villages and in Siberia. It is a log hut that combines a steam room and a washing room. The room is heated by a fire that burns in a hearth, usually located in the center of the room under a pile of stones.

There are no pipes in the black bathhouse, and the smoke from the firebox, having passed through the stones that accumulate heat, circulates throughout the room, heating the walls, ceiling, and then exits through holes in the roof (ceiling) and walls, as well as through a half-open door.

The ceiling and walls in such a bathhouse are always smoked, hence the name of the bathhouse - black. When the bathhouse is heated, after the firewood is completely burned, the remaining firebrands and coals are thrown into the yard. Then close all the holes through which smoke escaped from the fireplace. The bathhouse must stand for an hour and a half for carbon monoxide to escape; after this the walls are doused with water, the floor and shelves are washed

To steam the baths, be sure to place one or two ladlefuls of water on the hot stones.

In remote villages of Russia you can still find bathhouses, partially or completely buried in the ground, which are also heated in black. The walls of such a bathhouse are made of logs; they retain heat well, while simultaneously providing constant air circulation. When the door is closed, the air in the bathhouse changes 6-7 times per hour.

Surprisingly, the heat inside the bathhouse lasts for a long time. Such a bathhouse is very economical; even in severe northern frosts it does not require a lot of firewood. At the entrance there is a porch, over which the roof of the bathhouse protrudes, forming a canopy. The porch is usually made with log walls and thus can be used as a dressing room and storage area for firewood.

You shouldn’t be afraid of soot in a black sauna; mainly only the walls and ceiling are smoked in it; benches and shelves are not shrouded in smoke and remain clean. For complete guarantee, it is enough to douse them with water. If you use only birch or aspen firewood, then when they burn, very little soot is formed. The soot present in the bathhouse is useful in that it absorbs all bad odors; the soot literally disinfects the steam room. A black sauna, without a chimney, has a number of advantages over a white sauna, which has a pipe for the smoke to escape. A black sauna is simpler and cheaper to build; there is no need to route the pipe through wooden structures and comply with strict fire safety rules.

The walls of the black-style bathhouse warm up faster and stronger, since the heat from the stove, having passed through the stones, does not fly out into the chimney, heating the white light, but spreads inside the room and warms everything up. For such a bathhouse, especially for a recessed one, you need much less firewood; you need to heat a black bathhouse not in the morning, like a white one, but only for two to three hours. In the black bath you can feel much stronger and more pleasant smells from the log walls, ceiling, spruce branches and herbs scattered in advance; the air in it is literally filled with aroma. In a white bathhouse, smells and aromas appear only when a broom is steamed or when you splash a herbal decoction on the hot stones.

The black bathhouse attracts with its romance, there is something ancient, primitive, fairy-tale about it, and it’s not for nothing that in the old days girls came to the black bathhouse to do magic. A white bathhouse is very easy to make from a black bathhouse if it is not to the taste of some family or if the family becomes wealthy. To do this, you need to equip the stove-heater with a roof, remove the pipe, and that’s it - the sauna is ready in white. In Fig. Figure 2 shows the simplest village bathhouse in white, consisting of only two rooms: a dressing room and a steam room.