Naked Finland

Although most of the year Finns go in jackets, they are very calm about nakedness: they celebrate birthdays in the sauna, do not pay attention to naked cyclists and do not pull the curtains

If you started to be friends or just communicate tightly with Finn, be sure: sooner or later you will definitely see him without clothes. Or her: the half is unimportant, the rule works equally with men and women.

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For the first time, this will certainly happen in the sauna. In Finland, the cult of the sauna really reigns: films, jokes and stereotypes do not exaggerate its scale. Here you can take a steam bath and in the booth of the lift after skiing, on the roof and in the basement, in the building designed by fashionable architects, and in a historical mansion with furnace heating. There are saunas in most apartment buildings, not to mention private houses. Often they are laid down in the layout of a three-four-room apartment. The Finns honestly use them with enthusiasm for their intended purpose, and immigrants are often turned into pantries.

The sauna almost always ends a corporate party, birthday or even a wedding. And, of course, they go to the Finnish sauna only naked - with the rare exception.

The anniversary of the colleague, the celebration of the New Year with university friends or the meeting of former classmates are not exceptions

Like days, when you can go to the usual adjoining sauna without an appointment, in a live line. True, in this case, there is still a division into “male” and “female” time. Nevertheless: how many neighbors on the entrance, with whom you are almost not familiar, but only so, greet you sometimes, have you seen a naked?

One of the most picturesque locations with a sauna in the vicinity of Helsinki - next to the natural center of Haltia photo: From a personal archive

Of course, if you enter the sauna, wrapped in a towel, you will not be kicked out of it with shame. And they will not even ask uncomfortable questions. But they will definitely be terribly surprised and wound out, as if you were an alien from the planet Nibiru. Because what is the point of covering yourself with a layer of fabric where it is much more pleasant, useful and more natural to be naked?

Undress, as if no one sees you

In fairness, it is worth noting that in Russia they also love to go to the bathhouse. Public baths for a long time were an instrument of socialization - like saunas in Finland. And thousands of Soviet citizens and citizens regularly saw each other in what the mother gave birth to. But for some reason, today's Finns to the masses relate to any forms of public exposure much more calmly than Russians, and many other Europeans.

I will give a couple of specific examples. Center Helsinki, cool evening in the middle of summer. A column of cyclists travels along the boulevard: women are completely without clothes, men - with socks in “causal places”, as they like to write in the domestic press. Passers -by either do not look at them at all, or with a smile they see their eyes. Someone recalls the Red Hot Chili Peppers group with their traditional Socks on Cocks. No one is outraged, does not twist a finger at the temple, does not cover his eyes to the children.

Or more. In one of the houses of our district, a woman of about sixty sits on the balcony of apartments on the second floor. On it - only translucent underwear. The woman clearly does not sunbathe - there is no sun: she just went out to smoke, not considering it necessary to dress specifically for this. The balcony is perfectly visible from the street, but, turning my head to the sides, I notice that I turned out to be the only one who even paid attention to the woman. The rest calmly go their own way, buried in the screens of smartphones or looking in front of you, and not at the balconies and windows.

In Finland, mothers are breastfeeding babies in restaurants or parks, and no one demands that they retire to a special room. People change into swimwear and swimming trunks not in the bushes, but right on the beach, throwing a towel over themselves or simply moving a little to the side of the crowd. The image of a naked person who joyfully jumps into the water from the pier is constantly found in Finnish advertising. The newly acquainted girl and the elderly lady can chat half an hour, standing naked in the middle of the locker room of the pool.

The same pool where you can go to the female locker room with your mother, even if you are already a schoolboy photo: from a personal archive

By the way, in the same locker room, mothers often bring boys about six to seven years old, or even eight, who are clearly able to independently pull the swimming trunks and close the cabinet with an automatic key. It is not a matter of hyper -beam, it is not particularly characteristic of Finnish parents. It’s just more convenient for mothers to make sure that the child quickly changed clothes and is not late for training. And they see nothing terrible or dangerous in the fact that a seven -year -old boy will be among a crowd of naked women. That it somehow injures or “corrupt” it.

But in the fitness club, where I went in Moscow, there were announcements, which read that children of the opposite sex are strictly forbidden to bring to the locker room. To determine which approach is more correct, I, to be honest, has not yet succeeded. And the boys, too adults, to be considered “asexual” crumbs, in the female locker room still confuse me a little.

Closer to nature, away from ideal

When trying to explain the attitude of the Finns to nakedness to mind, the first thing the cult of environmental friendliness and Finnish nature reigning in the country comes. For example, vegetables and berries grown not in Spain or Israel, but in Finland, are in particular demand here. Spit that they are not always tastier or more beautiful: the main thing is their own. The most important part of the national Finnish idea is a vacation in Mökki (Mökki), a house in a forest or by the lake, in the wilderness. The farther from large cities - the better. The Finns are convinced that naturally, naturally, cannot be considered not only ugly, but also “indecent”.

Including a naked body

There are, however, two more keys to understanding the attitude of modern Finns to nakedness: firstly, the ability not to show interest in someone else's private life, and secondly, the absence of strict, superior standards imposed from the outside.

A striking example of Finnish body -positive advertising photo: From a personal archive

Yes, the owners of sports bodies are more likely to fall on the covers of magazines - both young and more mature age. That's just a sporting body in the finish-not ephemeral-worn, with thin hands and covered with tanned skin with press cubes, but dense, strong, seeming even more complete than asthenic. It is no coincidence that one of the first Bodsival messengers in the Instagram fitness segment was Finka Sarah Pukhto.

To undress in sight of people, knowing that they don’t care how you look, thin or fat, you have cellulite or not, it is much easier: nudity often scares not by itself, but reflected in the eyes of the one who evaluates us. In the same way, it is easier to leave the windows unpleasant, realizing that they are unlikely to look in them. Finns do not feel the space outside the house dangerous. They do not seek to isolate from him. And besides, they feel that they have nothing to hide-even if we are talking about actions that somewhere have a rather intimate status.

For four years, I’ve been so used to the curtains that they hang on the windows just as an element of decor and are used for its intended purpose only in the bedroom - in the summer, during white nights - that my mother, coming to visit, brings me to white heat, when the evening carefully lays the windows in all rooms.

Well, someone will see by chance how you walk naked in the apartment. Or how you get drunk, sitting on the couch in my underpants (for this action, the Finns even have a special word: kalsarikännit).

What is so?

And as in your house the most ordinary life goes on as usual, and under your clothes the most ordinary body is hidden. Yes, maybe it is not slender, not sports, it has scars, stretch marks and birthmarks. But, if this offends someone's feelings, then this is his or her problem, the Finns are sure. And not yours.

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The material uses links to publications of social networks Instagram and Facebook, as well as their names are mentioned. These web resources belong to Meta Platforms Inc. - It is recognized in Russia as an extremist organization and is prohibited.

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