March 02, 2008
Fun Löyly (Sauna) Facts
Posted at 23:49 in .
We watched a hilarious and enjoyable 50-minute documentary on the Finnish national Löyly (sauna) culture. It’s pretty far north up here—we’re only a degree of latitude farther south than Anchorage—so there's a natural interest in spending lots of time in a (very) warm environment, but the Finns take it to an intense level.
Here are some fun facts from the documentary:
- There are two million saunas in Finland for about five million people.
- Finns are so dedicated to saunas that they're aboard everything from icebreakers to deployed overseas with Finnish troops. In Kosovo, there are 20 saunas for 300 troops. The largest sauna is at the Naval Academy.
- Today more than 90 percent of new apartments are built with in-apartment saunas.
- There's a Finnish saying regarding medical ailments: "If sauna, booze, and tar don't help, it's fatal."
- The longtime Finnish leader Urho Kekkonen was famous for his "sauna diplomacy," where he would bring world leaders into his presidential sauna for extended negotiating sessions.
Anyway, if the movie ever makes it onto YouTube, it’ll be a huge viral success.
