they just make sense

im just not that comfortable with public changing rooms. and i'm just not that comfortable getting all that close.

so we go to the banya in novgarad. theres a large fitting room with wide chairs in long lines that look kind of like director's chairs. and they're all in rows and there are coat racks and shoe racks and its about the quality of a YMCA built in 1932. and theres us. and then there's a circle of russian woman, all smoking drinking and gossiping and dripping and they're all naked. the chatter stops and they're looking at us. and smoking; smoking at us. smoking at us and sizing us up.
we stripped down but we were all clutching our towels. about 7 of us.
the second room is full of basins; old showers where you pull a chain and the water drops down. some of the women are scrubbing each other with mud, some of them are lathering shampoo. and then they're all looking at us. they shuttle us into the sauna. the top is the hottest; wooden slatted benches. they pass us the branches and we kind of tickle ourselves with them. and then a fleet of them come in the door and we're all sitting on top of each other in the steam. and they're yelling things at us in russian but they're smiling. then they start yelling the only thing they seem to know in english: "MASSAGE MASSAGE!!" and before i know it they're pulling me to my feet and bending me over and beating me double with oak branches. im not a sadist, but it felt pretty good until they poured more water on the stones and my knees began to get weak and my head started to slump. we're all standing up, but they're still trying to teach us how to serve a proper wallop with those branches. 7 girls caught up on the stairs, sweating into their eyes and swaying on their feet.
and then the second thing i understand that we're supposed to do: to the river. only four of us at once, and i kind of thought there'd be a private walk. But in towels we run out to the public banya front and sideway down to the uneven beach ledge and the shallow bay and a gang of sleazy Russians in leather jackets.
we go twice, and the Russian women are giggling with us, and offering us shampoo and teaching us how to shampoo and how to scream when we dump water on ourselves because from what i can tell from the sign language its just good for your soul and teaching us how to drink beer and how to giggle and smoke and smile