My First Russian Bathhouse

While my cousin and I were in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of New York, we decided to visit his temperamental alcoholic of an uncle, Dadya Tsalik. Although we weighed the pros of free vodka against the cons of near-certain racist rantings, the pros ultimately seemed to outweigh the cons (by a slim margin).

Eugene had made arrangements for Tsalick to pick us up, and when Tsalik's red van came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the street we quickly scrambled into the car. Eugene's uncle, like most Eastern Europeans, was vehemently opposed to the very idea of a seat belt. The entire back seat had some sort of a covering on it that made it impossible to reach the belt buckle, almost as if to dare someone to follow the law and buckle up. Just like most things that are in any way beneficial to one's health or safety, the seat belt is universally reviled in the former Soviet-Union.

As we drove through Brighton Beach, Tsalik broke out into a rant about minorities not working very hard but receiving government money, food stamps and welfare. In typical Soviet fashion, Tsalik seemed to miss the grand irony that most Soviet citizens, including himself, spent their lives doing just that - living off of the government and pretending to work.

After the customary rant, Tsalik pulled into the parking lost of something called the "Mermaid Spa" and we got down to business.

"We're going to a Russian bathhouse (banya)," Tsalik announced. "Here," he threw a bag my way, "Eugene told me you didn't bring a bathing suit, so I brought you my wife's."

Alarm bells went off in my head, and I threw Genya a panicked glance. When I peaked into the bag, I realized that the cup size of the bikini top was at least a Double D. Worse yet, I couldn't know what kind of a women this was. The only thing I wanted to share with Tsalik and his wife was our heritage, not STD's.

This, of course, was a miracle in disguise. The obvious difference in size had given me a convenient excuse, and all I needed to do now was inform this angry Russian that his ederly wife's bathing suit didn't fit.

As I hopped out of the van, I noticed Tsalik waddling toward me and was momentarily speechless. This guy had to be less than 5 feet tall, and, better yet, he was wearing a gold chain with a dangling א around his neck. Stunned, I clutched Tsalik's-wife's terrifyingly large bathing suit and followed my angry little uncle into the Russian bathhouse.

Once inside, I ducked into the ladies room and waited until I heard my uncle and cousin disappear into the men's room. As soon as they were gone, I went into the lobby and begged the kindly bathhouse attendant to loan me a smaller bathing suit.

"Look at this!" I gawked at the bikini top. "I could wear this as a hat!"

"We used to have a bathing suit that someone left but we threw it away," the attendant told me sympathetically. "Perhaps you could paritsa (sweat in the sauna) with your clothes on?"

Great, I thought, as I looked down at my Sonic Youth t-shirt and other hipster attire. Kim Gordon and I at the mafioso Russian bathhouse.

When I walked into the common pool area, I was the only person still dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

"What's wrong - why aren't you in your bathing suit?" Tsalik asked, as he waddled toward me in a small brown speedo, a pointy brown hat, and his gold chain.

"Well, the bathing suit doesn't really fit..." I began.

"Huh?" He stumbled. "Well...is it too big or too small?"

Was he senile or just stupid? I wondered.

"It's too large, but thank you again for trying to get me a bathing suit," I answered.

"Well, that's no problem!" He quacked. "We can just tie it up in the back with a rubber band!"

Neither senile nor stupid, I realized, but certainly a pervert.

"I'll just sit here in the pool area and relax," I told Tsalik.

As Tsalik waddled off grumbling something about how he had already paid for me, I sat down in a pool chair and looked around the bathhouse. The common area was filled with stern-faced Russian men and their attractive young wives. Several men appeared to be negotiating "business deals."

Since Tsalik had already paid for me, however, Eastern European and Jewish custom ultimately dictated that I was obliged to paritsa, bathing suit or no bathing suit, life or death. Wasting money was the cardinal sin of our people - I might as well have killed his first-born on the spot.

As I entered the sauna room in my jeans, t-shirt and sneakers, Tsalik waived some sort of a broom at me. I found out later that the broom was made of oak and that a Russian's idea spa relaxation involved being beaten and whipped with such a broom. Like so many other forms of Rssian "relaxation" and "recreation," this certainly helped to explain how a people endured 70 years of totalitarian rule.

Tsalik's friend Azod laid himself down on the third tier of the sauna room and received a series of harsh blows from the oak-leaf broom. As Tsalik beat Azod's back with the broom, Azod emitted a series of happy groans. I closed my eyes and absorbed the smell of (was it mint?) as the groans continued.

"It opens up your pores properly!" I heard Tsalik exclaim.

After sitting in the sauna for an ungodly five minutes (Russian sauna rooms are calibrated to operate at higher temperatures), we exited the sauna and I watched as Azod happily threw himself into a pool of icy water (there was a special tube that fed ice cubes into the water every few minutes). Then we all went outside, then back into the sauna, then to the icy pool, and repeated the ritual a grueling six or seven times.

During one of our breaks outside, Tsalik began bragging about the many vacations he took.

"Have you ever been to the Dominican Republic?" He asked.

Why no, but I do vacation next to failing states all the time! The "spend some time in a country bordering a failed state" industry has really skyrocketed in the past few years! (in all seriousness, this might be true for Russia and Eastern Europe since most Western European countries are reluctant to grant Eastern Europeans travel visas).

"No," I replied, "I didn't realize tourists were allowed in-"

"Ah you're missing out," the old man squealed with delight. "You can have whatever you want! A table of food stretching the whole length of the beach - whatever you want! Bread, meat, all sorts of fruits!"

Wow.

"Aren't you the least bit frightened to vacation there, given the situation in the neighboring country?" I asked.

"What, Cuba?" he asked.

"No...Haiti..." I answered incredulously.

"Oh I don't talk about these things - Azod is our expert, ask Azod."

I turned to Azod.

"Aren't you scared of the situation in Haiti?"

"What situation?" he asked skeptically.

"The entire country is just a mess. There was a war of sorts there for a long time."

Azod frowned and ignored my question. "Everything's fine in Cuba."

Uh....

------

After the sauna, Tsalik drove myself and Eugene to his house for spirits and food.

"100 grams a day - it's medicine!" Tsalik had squealed several times throughout the evening.

When we pulled up to Tsalik's house in the (gated) Seagate community, I was greeted by a surprisingly sweet women named Sofia - his wife, and the owner of the now-famous bathing suit. After taking my shoes off, I was quickly herded upstairs and told to take a shower. The bathroom was a typical Nouveau Russian monstrosity with a pink color scheme and a shelf displaying various mismatched souvenirs from around the world. Three track jackets, no doubt belonging to Tsalik, hung on the door.

The living room was similarly Nouveau Russian. Richly colored wallpaper, leather couches, carpets made to look like Siberian tiger furs and a plasma TV perpetually tuned in to RTVN revealed just how little Tsalik and Sofia had assimilated American culture during their 30 years in New York. Genya and I waited as Tsalik set the table and prepared vareniki.

"Marina, come here," Tsalik ordered. "You don't have anything like this, do you?" A bag of frozen vareniki was thrust up to my face. "Actually we do - at the local Russian market..."

"But your frozen vareniki aren't THIS good, are they?"

Slavs have a strange habit of welcoming visitors and then verifying that the visitors don't have this or that in their hometown. Apparently accustomed to entertaining Ukrainians from Odessa, Tsalik expected me to be impressed by the size of his house (my house in Kansas City is four times bigger), his van's keyless ignition (oooooohhhhhhhh American technoogy oooooohhhh) as well as frozen vareniki (which can be found in both Odessa and Kansas City). Lacking the strength to argue, I gave in and pretended to admire his frozen vareniki.

"Prekol'na (very cool)," I remarked dryly.

As we sat down to eat, Sofia asked me where I was from.

"I'm from Kansas City," I replied, pronouncing my hometown slowly and enunciating every syllable.

She looked confused. "Where is that?"

"In the center of the country - right in the center," I replied.

She thought hard for a moment.

"So it's somewhere near Odessa?"