The bath-house is a building of two, and generally three, rooms. In the outer room you undress, and your chelavek, or servant, does the same. If there is but another room you are led directly into it, and find a hot fire in a large stove. There is a cauldron of hot water and a barrel of cold water close at hand. The tools of the operator are a bucket, two or three basins, a bar of soap, a switch of birch boughs, and a bunch of matting. If there are three apartments the second is only an ante-room, not very warm and calculated to prepare you for the last and hottest of all.
The chelavek begins by throwing a bucket of warm water over you. He follows this with another, and then a third, fourth, and fifth, each a little warmer than its predecessor. On one side of the room is a series of benches like a terrace or flight of large steps. You are placed horizontally on a bench, and with warm water, soap, and bunch of matting the servant scrubs you from head to foot with a manipulation more thorough than gentle. The temperature of the room is usually about 110° Fahrenheit, but it may be more or less. It induces vigorous perspiration, and sets the blood glowing and tingling, but it never melts the flesh nor breaks the smallest blood vessel. The finishing touch is to ascend the platform near the ceiling and allow the servant to throw water upon hot stones from the furnace. There is always a cloud of steam filling the room and making objects indistinct. You easily become accustomed to the ordinary heat, but when water is dropped upon the stones there is a rush of blistering steam. It catches you on the platform and you think how unfortunate is a lobster when he goes to pot and exchanges his green for scarlet.
I declined this coup de grace after a single experience. To my view it is the objectionable feature of the Russian bath. I was always content after that to retire before the last course, and only went about half way up the terrace. The birchen switch is to whip the patient during the washing process, but is not applied with unpleasant force. To finish the bath you are drenched with several buckets of water descending from hot to cold, but not, as some declare, terminating with ice water. This little fiction is to amuse the credulous, and would be ‘important if true.’ Men have sometimes rushed from the bath into a snow bank, but the occurrence is unusual. Sometimes the peasants leave the bath for a swim in the river, but they only do so in mild weather. In all the cities there are public bath rooms, where men are steamed, polished, and washed in large numbers. In bathing the Russians are more gregarious than English or Americans. A Russian would think no more of bathing with several others than of dining at a hotel table. Nearly every private house has its bath room, and its frequent use can hardly fail to be noticed by travelers.
FINISHING TOUCH.
On the morning of the 6th the Constantine arrived, having left the Korsackoff’s barge hard aground below Igoon. So we were to start unencumbered. I took my baggage to the Korsackoff, and was obliged to traverse two barges before I reached the boat. Twelve o’clock was the hour appointed for our departure, and at eleven the fires were burning in the furnaces. A hundred men were transferring freight from the Constantine to the Korsackoff, and made a busy scene. Four men carrying a box of muskets ran against me on a narrow plank, and had not my good friend the doctor seized me I should have plunged headlong into the river. The hey-day in my blood was tame; I had no desire to fall into l’Amour at that season.
At eleven there came an invitation to lunch with the governor at two. “How is this?” I said to the doctor; “start at twelve and lunch here two hours later!” Smiling the doctor replied:
“I see you have not yet learned our customs. The governor is the autocrat, and though the captain positively declares he will start at noon you need not be uneasy. He will not go till you are on board, and very likely you will meet him at lunch.”
At two o’clock I was at the governor’s, where I found the anxious captain. When our lunch was finished Madame Pedeshenk gave me some wild grapes of native production. They were about the size of peas, and quite acid in taste. With cultivation they might be larger and better flavored, just as many of our American grapes have improved in the past twenty years. Some of the hardier grapes might be successfully grown on the middle Amoor, but the cold is too long and severe for tender vines. Attached to his dwelling the governor has a hot-house that forms a pleasant retreat in winter. He hopes to introduce vines and raise hot-house grapes in Siberia within a few years.
I walked to the boat with Doctor and Madame Snider, our promenade being enlivened by a runaway horse that came near dragging a cart over us. The governor and his lady were there, with nearly all the officers, and after saying adieu I stepped on board, and we left the pier. We waved kerchiefs again and again as long as waves could be seen.