Allow me to explain. In 2004, and in an especially foolish moment, I decided to live and work abroad. Employed by a non-profit organization, I was assigned to Kazakhstan. Upon arriving in my new city, Almaty, I couldn’t wait to experience one of their many spas, eager for a day of hedonistic indulgence and pampering. I gathered up my spa essentials in preparation. Bathing suit- check! Flip flops - check! Magazines to read while relaxing-check! The public banya, the generic term for steam room, was a massive, fortress like, stone building that took up a full city block. Outside, vendors were hawking everything from food to flip flops, felt hats to veniks (bundles of oak, birch or eucalyptus leaves used in the sauna).

I ran into the first problem immediately. The ticket taker, a little old man sitting in a unheated (15 degrees outside) wooden structure at the foot of the roman like steps, would not sell me a ticket. I tried giving him small bills, maybe they need exact change. “Nyet,” he said and wagged a frail finger in torn gloves. I tried giving him large bills, maybe he expected a tip? I got a louder “nyet” and a double finger wag. I then tried to pay him with American dollars. He threw me a sheer look of disgust and waved me away. I didn’t budge; I was not about to give up my luxury day because of a language barrier. After about 45 minutes, a line formed and people started buying tickets. When I handed over my 500 Kazakh tenge ($3.75), I received a warm and hearty “Seechus, Seechus. Da, da” (Now, now. Yes, yes). I later learned that banya sessions are structured around two-hour intervals, so tickets are not sold in between.

I went upstairs and immediately headed into the locker room, the men’s locker room that is. In my haste to learn spa words I had neglected to get the basics down like “women” and “men.” There was an uproar and I was directed into the correct room. Since all activities at the banya are in the nude, separation of men and women is strictly enforced. As I was putting on my bathing suit, women started yelling “nyet, nyet, nyet.” Okay, no bathing suit. I started walking around naked, the women yelled again. Oops! The protocol is that you wear a towel. My language skills were limited to the few phrases I had learned from Saya, my Russian teacher in Almaty, earlier in the week. Much to her confusion, I had specifically asked her for terminology that would come in handy at a spa, as opposed to logistical phrases that could help me ask directions or order dinner. Unfortunately, my limited Russian vocabulary did not help me decipher the admonitions being yelled by 300 nude Kazakh women.

My being a foreigner wasn’t the only cause for standing out like, well, a foreigner. There was also the matter of my height. First, I should clarify that I am not tall, I am a very average 5” 7’. Average, that is, in America. When I first arrived in Kazakhstan, I was surprised to discover that the average Kazakh woman is petite, typically no more than 5” 2 ‘, with Asian rather than Caucasian features. After thirty-nine years of being of average height, I was now tall, I mean really tall. This was a bonus of living abroad that I had not yet considered. However, in this particular instance, I felt like Gulliver and kept surreptitiously glancing down at my legs and ankles to ensure that they were not being wrapped in Lilliputian thread.

By this time, my expectations of luxury quickly gave way to Communist era functionality. There were Russian, Finnish and Turkish baths, a large palatial round swimming pool, a changing area, a huge shower room and a cafeteria with couches. But there were no shower curtains, no complimentary fancy soaps or lotions, the couches were made from hard plastic and there was an ever-present two inch layer of water throughout the whole place.

I finally got into the banya groove. The schedule is something like this. Head into a Turkish sauna and sit for a bit. Linger in the Russian steam room then enjoy (!) an icy plunge. Take a shower or lazily swim in the pool. I was feeling pretty confident and ready for my massage. I mean after all, what is a spa day without a relaxing soothing massage? I was lucky that there was a masseuse ready, because I subsequently learned there are no appointments. Strictly, first come, first serve. If no one is available, then you do another round of banyaing and try your luck later. We smiled shyly at each other as I waited for her to lead me into a private room where the new age music was being piped in and the 600 thread-count cotton sheets on the massage table awaited my arrival. Well, that is not exactly how it played out.

The masseuse led me to a marble table in the middle of the shower room. Wait. What? Really? I am now lying naked on a cold slab of marble in the middle of the women’s shower room. There was absolutely no massage foreplay, no gentle unwinding. I laid down and she immediately started pounding my back. Not a “let’s warm up the muscles and then I will get down to business” touch, nope, this was a thrashing. “Wow,” I thought to myself, “good thing I learned some Russian spa phrases earlier in the week. I tried to be polite and started with “please…”, but the gal did not hear me over the thumping. Or maybe it was because she was chatting away with the other massage therapists. I was not the only one lying on a marble slab in the public women’s shower room, there were about six “beds” lined up. The women performing the torture were treating their customers as if we had interrupted their weekly coffee klatch; I swear one was even smoking a cigarette.

At this point, I have gone numb. It is one thing to get beat up; it is an entirely different thing to have the impact absorbed by marble. I did, at one point, try to get up but I was pushed back down. I then started shouting in my best outside voice “trudna, trudna, trudna (softer, softer, softer)!” My masseuse got a kick out of that and actually increased the pressure on my back. I noticed that the others were looking upon my table with bemused looks. I got a slap on my butt, which I understood as time to turn over. I somehow made it through that massage and headed back into the women’s changing room to the cafeteria to have some tea. I did mention that the cafeteria was in the middle of the women’s changing room, right? It is a little bizarre to sit and have tea (naked which most prefer, though I modestly wore my towel) among hundreds of women in various stages of undress, but not nearly as awkward as the naked pedicures. Think about that for a second- naked pedicures. I kid you not.

The first thing Monday morning, Saya and I spoke about the experience. She liked my whole adventure (trying to bribe the ticket taker, wearing a bathing suit, heading into the men’s room, etc.), but she did look peculiarly at me during the massage description. I thought it was just because of the marble slab or being in a shower room. As it turns out, during the massage I had been shouting “harder, harder harder.” Man, that explained a lot, including the bruises. For the next eighteen months, I visited and greatly enjoyed the banya once or twice a month. But I made sure that I practiced the word for softer, each and every time, before entering.

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