Smoke sauna
Genuine traditional ‘smoke sauna’ by the lake.
The savusauna, or smoke sauna, is truly a Finnish gem. Not just is it a wood-heated sauna, but even more. Whereas normal wood-heated saunas have a chimney to guide the smoke out, the smoke sauna does not have chimney at all. Yes, the smoke actually lingers in the room for the whole time while the sauna is heating up for 5-8 hours, just like it has been done for thousands of years in Finland! The smoke is then let finally out of the door and through special hatches before sauna-goers go in to sauna, making it completely safe and entirely healthy for everyone.
The stove holds stones with a weight over 1400 kilograms conserves all the warmth that the burning of the wood has produced during the extensive heating time. All these manoeuvres provide the extraordinary and truly unique sauna experience that is a must-do for everyone visiting Finland!
All that combined with an extra ordinary view to the Lake Tuusula and a possibility to go to swim from Krapi’s Savusauna’s own pier makes this an experience like nothing else. To make it even one step cooler, you can go to swim also in the coldest winter days through the hole in the ice.
Savusauna is a sacred place
For people in Finland sauna is not only a place to go to bathe, there has always been something sacred, not necessarily in religious way , but in the way of healing your body and mind. Sauna has offered a place to rest after hard work, it has held a place throughout all phases in the circle of life. Illnesses and diseases have been treated there. Brides have had their baths there and prophesies have been read in the dim light of sauna. The ‘spirit of sauna’ is always present to bless the bathers to protect sauna from fire. In the silent serenity of sauna you may sense a connection to the unseen world. Savusauna is the most genuine sauna of them all.
Krapi’s savusauna was built in the early 1930’s, Onni Lustig, who was the master of the estate back then, reconditioned the shore to be a beach for swimmers. The shore was refurbished and formed, horses pulled hundreds of wagons of sand from the sandpits from the opposite shore. The newly shaped shore became a beach paradise that had taken influences from European sand beaches, so people started to call it Krapi’s Riviera.
Savusauna was built and the stove was masoned to the best knowledge of the constructors. It became a renowned place for it’s magnificently gentle heat that lasted for hours and hours. The stove is heated from underneath the building and you can fit a quarter cubic meters of meter long firewood into the stove at once.
There are 1400 kilograms of stones in the stove and they lay overtop of full-iron railroad bars. Three layers of brick masonry holds the remarkable structure together. It takes 5-8 hours to heat up this massive mass of rock so that it’s ready for sauna-goers. The temperature of sauna as well as the outside temperature affects to the timing of heating.
Fire has taken over the sauna building three times during its long history. Last time it happened in 1998, destroying most of the building. All that is left from the original sauna is the stone foundation and the stove, everything else around them is built new. The sauna experience is still as good as it was almost hundred years ago, for it was protected by the spirit of the sauna.
