It wasn't your normal health treatment. I sat in the buff next to two men, both naked apart from sheets draped over their shoulders: one was tucking into a cooked fish, the other knocking back generous 10am shots of vodka.
I'd joined the small but growing number of tourists experiencing the bewildering rituals and traditions of the Russian banya. As the former Soviet Union opens up, linguistically challenged visitors are learning the secrets of its bathhouses through pidgin Russian and sign language.
One of the best places to experiment is Moscow's Sandunovskiye Banya, a few streets from the Kremlin. Here you bathe in history as well as steam: its baroque, renaissance, gothic and rococo architecture was recently revamped after years of communist neglect.
First signs weren't promising. Although the brochure promised 10 health benefits, including "welcome attention from the opposite sex", I couldn't find the entrance. I wanted "higher man class", the most striking of the banya's five sections, but after 15 minutes of points and grunts arrived back where I'd started.
When finally located, it was worth the wait: gold pillars, Italian marble, murals, chandeliers and sweeping stairs leading into a cathedral-like chill-out room. Waiters brought booze, tea and snacks to the near-naked clientele amid elaborately carved wood beams and cubicles, leather banquettes and gold lamps.
After stripping off, I entered the parilka (steamroom) and was enveloped by nude males in ludicrously pointy hats - to stop heat escaping, if I understood correctly - slapping themselves and their neighbours with twigs. For 10 minutes I smiled hopefully at alarmed strangers, before a group of expat Russian-speaking French accountants came to my rescue.
Correct procedure required a restart. I showered to improve my sweat, drank tea to warm my insides and then bent over the parilka bench where one of the accountants - his strokes suggested he worked in liquidation - thrashed me with a venik, a bunch of birch or oak twigs. It generated furnace-like heat, releasing a satisfying woody aroma.
This was more like it. I was now participating in a tradition 18th-century scientists credited for Russians' longevity and resistance to disease. People were born in banyas and buried with veniks, and bathhouses received official approval from Lenin's government.
An hour later and I felt like a true comrade, sweating and thrashing out vodka toxins, then supercharging my circulation and complexion with dips in a tub of pure, icy water. On the last of my four sweats, I scorched my buttocks on a hot tile, yelped, spun round and singed a vital part of my anatomy. Having wanted advice, I'd finally got a hot tip.
After a plunge into a 25C swimming pool surrounded by pillars and Greek statues, I retired to the banquettes for a well-earned snooze and recuperative vodka. Perfectski.
· Banya from £12 (higher man class £20), sanduny.ru. Travel Russia (020-7317 7434, travelrussia.net) offers three nights' B&B in a five-star hotel from £350, inc transfers but not flights.
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