Why Finland fell in love with the word "SAUNAS".

Most Finns consider traditional smoke saunas to be the best because of the very softloylythey produce. They take about five hours to heat and produce soot which covers the wooden walls in a thick black layer. The benches are scrubbed clean but bathers are advised not to lean against the wall, unless they want to get a sooty back.
Unlike wood-burning saunas, the smoke saunas use a stove without a chimney. The smoke clears through a small hole in the ceiling before you enter. You can still smell it - a pleasant sensation which transports your mind to the forest - but you do not see it or feel it in your eyes.
No clothes or swimsuits are allowed, for the same reason that you would not wear anything in the bath or shower. Every part of the body needs to be properly cleaned.
Men and women visit the sauna separately, unless they are members of the same family. Parents go with their children, and everyone is comfortable with that - at least until the children become teenagers, when they tend to use the sauna alone, or with friends.
The word carried sexual connotations in 1970s Soho
There is one widespread misconception that Lehtola is very keen to dispel. "It's nothing to do with sex in Finland," he says emphatically.
Finnish sauna sayings
*.In the sauna one must conduct himself as one would in church
*.The sauna is a poor man's pharmacy
*.If a sick person is not cured by tar, spirits [alcohol] or sauna, then they will die
*.A woman looks her most beautiful after the sauna
*.All men are created equal; but nowhere more so than in a sauna
*.A house without a sauna is not a home
*.A sauna without a birch whisk is like food without salt
"But in places like Germany in the 1970s and 80s it was all to do with sex."
Lehtola insists he has never enjoyed a sauna beyond Finland's borders, despite trying them in many countries.
Truth to tell, he would not be happy with some of Helsinki's public saunas either. Two - Kotiharju and Arla - date from the 1920s and can be found in Kallio, a traditionally working class district.
Factory workers who lived in homes without bathing facilities used to visit these saunas to relax, socialise and be scrubbed clean by washerwomen. Now the area's new inhabitants - students, artists and adventurous tourists - come to sweat and drink cold beer.
At Arla, the mood contrasts sharply with Saunaseura's contemplative atmosphere. The famed Finnish reserve is nowhere to be seen. People seem to enjoy talking to complete strangers in the nude, as long as it's painfully hot.
And there is alcohol too. Outside in a courtyard people wrapped in towels open bottles of beer, as steam rises from their bodies.
Watching ice hockey from the warmth of a stadium sauna box in Helsinki
There used to be more than 100 public saunas in Helsinki, with one on almost every street corner. But the number began to decline in the 1950s when people began to buy their own homes, complete with private sauna.
It's very healthy to see different types of breasts and bums
Minna Kurjenluoma
The capital now has just four public saunas. One is the brand new Kulttuurisauna, or Culture Sauna - the first to have been built in the city for half a century.
Despite the heat, which can reach up to 160C (320F), Finns insist saunas cool down tense situations.
The Finnish parliament has its own sauna chamber for MPs to debate in, and all Finnish diplomatic and consular missions around the world have their own sauna.
Former president and Nobel peace prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari used sauna diplomacy - diplomatic meetings in the sauna - to move forward negotiations from Tanzania to Indonesia. During the Cold War, Urho Kekkonen - who served as president for 26 years - negotiated with Soviet diplomats in the sauna at his official residence.
Urho Kekkonen's sauna diplomacy
Kekkonen, left, and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev before a hunting trip
Finland's president from 1956 to 1982 - pictured above left with the USSR's Nikita Khrushchev- believed in the diplomatic healing powers of the sauna.
When world leaders came to his official residence, Tamminiemi, he would hold negotiations in the sauna where new and more constructive ideas arose. Kekkonen believed all were equal in the sauna, and politics could not be hidden up a sleeve when no sleeves were worn.
Finland trod a diplomatic tightrope during the Cold War. Its neutrality between East and West was constantly challenged by its giant neighbour, the USSR.
In 1960, Khrushchev attended Kekkonen's 60th birthday. The story goes that Kekkonen kept Khrushchev in the sauna until 5am, throwing more water on the hot stones. Soon after, the Soviet government issued a communique expressing support for Finland's intention to co-operate with the West. It led to Finland joining the European Free Trade Association in 1971.
Khrushchev was criticised at home. His countrymen said a communist should not have gone naked into a sauna with a capitalist and non-socialist.