Authentic records say that the Finnish not just knew about sauna but even used it about 2000 years back. What do we know about history of the sauna?
Today almost everybody in the world knows about healing values of sauna. A warm atmosphere makes us relax and feel ourselves much better. Our mood rises, thoughts become clear, our body – lighter and livelier. Sauna beared test of time and nowadays is very popular among people of all nationalities, ages and social positions.
 Finnish climate is pretty cold. May be appearance of sauna just here was nonrandom phenomenon. In the past people believed that fire was a present of gods and the Finnish believed that hearth and the sauna oven were its altars. In sauna’s people spent a lot of time during harsh winters. Here women delivered babies, here the dead were washed. And it was considered that it is sauna where the dead want to come back to.
The oldest sauna’s relatives were mostly small pits dug in a sloppy area of the earth. They were mainly used to get warm during harsh winters. Stones were heated up in a fireplace and once they were hot, water was thrown over them to produce steam and additional heat. The temperature raised and people took off their cloths to feel the sensation of steam on their body.
The Finnish equivalent of the word “sauna” meant winter dwelling. Later it gained a meaning of bathe. And more sophisticated saunas appeared only in 19th century. Till then saunas were integral parts of house. More advanced saunas had a roof, a door and wooden walls. Some people still insist on validity of ground saunas and still prefer only them.
The usual type of sauna is a rectangular log hut, containing an open rock stove and hiked up platform. Before the 20th century the only type of sauna was savusauna that means smoke sauna. It contains many rocks in the stove. When heating up they produce smoke and warmth. The smoke leaks through the door or a vent in the ceiling. Here is a name - smoke sauna. This type of sauna has its disadvantages: a long heating time, difficulty in cleaning as smoke blackens everything in the room etc.
Most unpractical features were taken into account and recast in a new version of so called Finnish bathe – in chimney sauna. It contains a special door which may be opened or closed to regulate temperature. The stones are covered with a conical metal that led to a chimney to bring produced smoke out. In the XX century chimney type of stove sauna unit got a wide popularity because of its benefits and advantages in comparison with its old versions. Many country families had a built sauna in their houses and in cities public saunas were being built. A sauna boom dropped to the years of the Second World War.
The next stage in history was discovering and designing of a new sauna model. It has a chimney, but stones were heated not just in fire. And many cast iron elements were inserted between the stones to convey heat to them. In this type of sauna fire can be used only during the sauna session and regulating fire intensity a temperature in the room can be regulated. To reach the steam production users should wait about 30 minutes.
During next years in Finnish saunas more convenient electrical stoves went in use. Electrical heaters are more useful as precious wood from forests can be saved. Heating sauna stoves with electrical energy is quite convenient but this type of sauna is still considered as unsatisfactory. It is believed that steam produced by the age old wooden sauna, using combination of stone and hot water, is better than the steam produced in an electrical stove.
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