May the Waters Be With You

Two dozen naked men, jostling and groaning as they are fanned with belching steam and lashed with clumps of leafy birch twigs, may not sound like a discovery of health, spirituality and inner calm. Yet the wise owls of the banya (steam bath, plural: bani) will tell you that this centuries-old ritual unlocks multitudinous secrets of physical and mental

well-being, not to mention wide tracts of the Russian soul.