Don’t be surprised if there’s mention of a mythical “smoke eater” during your first smoke-sauna session. Estonia’s 800-year-old bathing ritual is a deeply spiritual and sacred practice, believed to purify the air and cleanse the spirits. Unlike standard saunas, the Estonian smoke hut is heated by an open fire without a chimney; the hot sooty air is let out via a window or crack in the door just before people file in, kicking off a three- to five-hour process that involves cold plunges, chanting, whistling, and the smoking of meat above the sauna’s benches.
Photo: Silver Gutmann / Courtesy of Visit Estonia
In Tallinn, wellness-seekers can try out a modernized version of the ritual at Iglupark, in the Noblessner district, featuring a series of sleek black saunas with ladders descending into the sea. Meanwhile, in Soomaa National Park, visitors are free to use an innovative floating sauna built by students from the Estonian Academy of Arts. But for the most authentic smoke sauna session, head to Mooska Farm, in Võru country, which appears in Anna Hints’s “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” documentary. Here, guests strip naked and plunge into a pond’s icy waters before filing into the sauna’s rug-lined benches. A sauna master drums, rings bells, and chants in the local Võru dialect, encouraging participants to breathe deeply and produce guttural sounds. For extra fortitude, maybe buy a few bottles of homemade beer.
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