Yesterday I visited the "Olimpija" sports complex, located in the leather factory district in the city of Daugavpils. The complex is a converted recreation area for workers of some organization that existed in the Latvian SSR. You can stay inside the complex for as long as you want, having paid 2.5 LS ($4.5) for entry.
Inside there is a small pool (4 lanes of 25 meters). Compared to my usual RTU pool in Kipsala (Riga) this one is small and greenish. But on the bright side, right next to it there's also a sauna, a Turkish bath, and a jacuzzi. Plus the walls are painted in cheerful colors with little flowers, and near the edges there are wooden chairs for the relaxation of visitors.
The jacuzzi turned out to be a funny thing. I used to imagine a jacuzzi in the form of light bubbles, slightly tickling the skin, but in reality everything was seething and bubbling like a cauldron with some hellish brew. Or like a mountain river. The reason is obvious - thrill-seeking visitors don't really think twice, and joyfully accept the machine's settings whatever they might be. And the administration, meeting them halfway, cranks everything up to the max in the morning and doesn't touch them anymore. In reality, everything can be adjusted however you want, including the temperature and the amount of air streams bursting from below, which I found out experimentally.
The Turkish bath, or what the complex designers had in mind by it, is just a room with two pipes from which hot steam, slightly scented with eucalyptus and mint, comes out. Only the implementation is funny - huge pipes stick out right on the floor, and getting a 2nd-degree burn is a piece of cake. Especially for people like me, who move around by touch without glasses.
The second funny detail is the button for turning on the supply of a new batch of steam. The walls in the bath are completely smooth, and only in one place a small tail of a steel rebar sticks out. They say that if you touch and stroke it, then shortly the pipes will rumble like contentedly grunting elephants, and spit out a new portion of fragrant heat. At first I took this for a local urban legend, but experiments showed that this corresponds to reality. It seems this was done to avoid ruining a normal button from moisture and heat, and at the other end of the rebar there's simply a sensor measuring the resistance, which changes upon a human touch.
There's no point in talking about the sauna. On the contrary, I'll ask. I've repeatedly heard that a "sauna" is a purely harmful New Russian invention, and Finns actually always have taken and still take steam baths by the principle of a classic "Russian" banya. Is this so? Because the sauna appeals to me only because it smells very nicely of dry wood in there, and I'd rather just sit in the Turkish bath.
Based on the results of the visit, a decision was made to buy a membership and visit the complex regularly.
Diary
2006-02-10