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Saunas and Spirits in Eastern Lithuania

© Colleen Kaleda

Shivering in the dark of midnight, soft river sand bunches under my bare feet. I am alone. A clear, curving creek flows slowly beneath the one-lane bridge I am standing on. It is December. Enveloped by fog and the scent of pines, I am deep in the eastern forests of southern Lithuania, only a few miles from the Belarussian border. I have walked away from a smoke sauna tucked into a nearby hill for the reassuring coolness of the winter night. And then I see it, just 20 feet away: a lone wolf.

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For most of my adult life, I've been rather fearless -- perceived by friends and family as a calculated risk-taker, someone who isn't afraid to try something new. That all changed after I stepped into a Lithuanian smoke sauna.

There are probably hundreds of little smoke-sauna lodges scattered throughout Lithuania, but I only saw one. This was thanks solely to a man who knew someone who knew someone who was willing to open it for visitors. If I had been in this neck of the woods, I probably would have never known what it was, and what a crazy experience going inside could be.

Our small group of four approached this 200-year-old smoke sauna with excitement, slipping down a muddy hillside to find one of the smallest cabins I have ever seen. The entire structure was made of wood, with one tiny window about the size of a small picture frame. The door was about three feet tall, into which we slipped by ducking our bodies low. Inside was a stack of old, flat stones encased by slats of wood. Underneath crackled a fire. The stones radiated heat, and the slow smoking of the fire over the centuries had blackened the walls. On one wall of the room was stacked wood, the others had wooden benches pushed up against them. Four aluminum tubs of different sizes sat on the wood floor, filled with cool water. Everything was lit, barely, by two burning candles. A soothing scene.

Then the door shut.

The interior of the smoke sauna got hotter and hotter. Our host pulled the giant ladle from the biggest tub and threw cold water on the pile of hot stones. Steam filled the tiny room and my lungs, burning them. The next thing I knew I was screaming, hollering. Claustrophobia set in. I thought I might die from overheating and stinging steam. I couldn't breathe. My fists began banging on the door, trying to open it. The adrenaline inside my chest felt like it was pulsing up through my neck.

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