“Are you still British, or are you feeling Estonian yet?” asked Eda Veeroja, our smoke sauna guide and 60-something grandmother. “A bit Estonian,” we tentatively replied.
“Good,” said Eda. The five of us were naked, sweaty, and sat in a low-ceilinged dark wooden sauna, when Eda told us to sit forward on the edge of the bench, spread our legs, then whisk and whack our vulvas with our freshly picked bunches of rowan, lilac, hazelnut and maple leaves. Surprised, but game for anything, we followed her lead.
Welcome to Mooska Farm, a smoke sauna in southern Estonia, an hour south of Tartu, recognised for its important cultural heritage by Unesco. Wafting the warm air into our bodies is just one small part of Eda’s smoke sauna ritual that dates back hundreds of years – we’d already scrubbed ourselves with elder tree ash (the alkaline in the ash combats our naturally acidic sweat and acts as a natural soap, while elder is used to fuel the sauna), scampered into the still water of the peony-fringed pond, and rubbed the fragrant spring leaves all over our skin as Eda chanted ancient sauna salutations. As spa experiences go, it couldn’t be more earthy and invigorating, and I was totally sold.
Sitting in the sauna’s neighbouring stone hut after, sipping rhubarb tea and listening to Eda talk of the spiritual significance of sauna to Estonians over the centuries, it’s hard to think of a more liberating way to spend a girls’ weekend.
Estonia has changed dramatically since gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. One of just a handful of countries that can claim to have clean air, it’s also been named the most environmentally friendly country by the Yale-compiled Environmental Performance Index. It’s a wonderfully progressive country, very tech-savvy, and has a growing number of people keen to share its nature, its pagan-based traditions and life beyond Tallinn.
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One of those is 40-something Helen Moppel, who left her career in the film industry and trained with Eda to become a sauna woman five years ago. We joined her on the Parvesaun sauna boat, with space for up to six to sauna in comfort on the river Emajõgi in Tartu. We motored west out of the compact city and…
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