The Banya on Piyonerskaya, Part II

The bathhouse itself had open stall showers of crumbling marble that maybe once was elegant, with broken spigots spouting out uneven bursts of water. The floors were of cracked slate tiles bathed in a slick of soap scum. There were rows of marble benches with troughs of water, where bathers put their soap, shampoo and shaving gear. There was a lot of shaving gear.

Almost all of the men walked around naked. I walked around with a towel wrapped around my middle. As always, people stared. And, as always they could tell I was a foreigner. I knew it from the way they whispered among themselves as I entered, the way the whispering dwindled as I drew near and then crescendoed after I passed by them to go under the shower. How was it that even naked and silent, something about me screamed that I was foreign? It is that I have a fair amount of hair on my body – on my chest, legs, and, of course, crotch, which they saw when I went into the showers. I have never shaved any of my hair off off. At the banya, I saw Uzbek men, most of whom aren’t very hairy to begin with, shaving themselves – shaving their pubic hair and leaving just a hint, like an Adolf Hitler moustache, above the penis or sometimes, shaving themselves bald. I watched with unease as they pulled and stretched out their scrotums so that they could scrape their Bic disposable shavers against them, leaving them hairless.

When they leave to go into the sauna and there are no voices and nobody present, there is something very lovely about the sound in the room – it’s a hollow echoic room and there is only the sound of water falling and dripping, like in a cave.

Suddenly, in burst a group of 30 or 40 young men. Kirill comes to tell me that this is the 3:00 shift in which the soldiers come in to bathe for 15 minutes. The room is full of young flesh – the boys are in their early twenties. They are mostly small, sinewy, muscular, and they rush into the sauna, those who don’t fit into the small room, go under the showers, soaping themselves up, soaping each other’s backs and then rinsing off. I go off to the stone benches with the whispering Uzbeks and watch this living fantasy, which ends quickly. Not before long, the young soldiers are scurrying out into the locker room to dry off and put on their military uniforms.

After they leave, I notice that the place is filled with bathers, all who seem to have arrived to watch the spectacle of the soldiers’ 3PM bathing shift, which has now left them aroused. They go into little private nooks behind curtains – massage room, or little tables where a group of men are playing cards or nardi, or drinking vodka.

Kirill sits with a group of men around a small table with several bottles of vodka on it and empty shotglasses. They offer me a seat and I decline – I’m in no mood to drink after episodes such as with Alexei. Usually, after a hangover like that, I vow to myself that I’ll never drink again and I don’t for about two weeks. Instead, I go into the sauna and think how strange it feels to purposefully go somewhere to sweat in such heat of the Tashkent summer. I close my eyes, feel someone’s hands on my back and a voice offering a massage. Not wanting to open my mouth and betray my foreignness – my accented Russian, I go “uh-uh” to indicate a “no.”

The man offering the massage leaves and I am alone with a kindly looking elderly man sitting across from me, who smiles at me and asks in surprisingly unaccented English with some grammatical idiosyncrasies – such as dropping the article, “are you foreigner?”

This actually shocks me. It is generally the younger generation that is able to speak English. I rarely come across any English speakers.

“Yes I am,” I say.

“Where from?”

“From the US. How is it that you speak English so well?”

“I was gas station attendant in New Jersey.” It was interesting – Uzbeks were all over the world working as labor migrants – sending money back home to Uzbekistan to support their families. “You know you look like famous movie actor”

“Don’t tell me,” I said. “Like Jean Claude van Damme”

“Yes…it’s very nice. He is very beautiful man.”

We sat in silence for a while. “You know, I have such nice Uzbek boy to introduce to you. I think you will like him very much. His name is Sherzod.”

“What is Sherzod like?”

“He speaks English very well. He’s tall, handsome, nice face, with golden teeth. He’s good boy.”

“He sounds very nice. I would be happy to meet him sometime.”

“You come here next Sunday, yes?”

“Ok.” I agreed.  ¶ 5:32 PM