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Tired of expensive, trendy spa treatments and ready for some old world pampering? New York City’s Russian Turkish Baths has been providing an authentic escape on East 10th Street for well over 100 years. As IT discovered firsthand, this experience is not for the faint of heart. Check your inhibitions at the locker room, along with your clothing, and line up with people of all shapes and sizes for your bathrobe, slippers, towel, soap, and razor, all included with the $30 admission price, good for the entire day.
The baths are coed (shorts or bathing suit required) with the exception of Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (women only) and Sundays from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. (men only). While celebrities have been sighted here—Uma Thurman and Russell Simmons among them—the baths are a perfect place to disappear. Descend into a dimly-lit cluster of baths that include a cherry-wood Swedish steam room, eucalyptus or lavender-scented Turkish steam room, Russian sauna, and ice-cold pool.
In the hottest room of all, the Russian sauna, bathers sit on wooden planks; when the heat becomes too much, they jump into the adjacent pool or splash themselves with a bucket of water from a nearby spigot.
Your skin will tingle like it’s on fire—this is a good thing—and soon you’ll be ready to do it all over again.
Or, splurge on a massage, Dead Sea salt scrub, or a traditional Russian platza treatment: An attendant accompanies you to the sauna and flogs you with a broom made with olive oil soap soaked oak leaves. As the Russians say: na zdorovya, to your health!
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