My childhood fell on the 80s and it took place in Tarkhovka - a small village in the Leningrad region. We lived in a communal apartment, but there were big problems with water supply. In winter, the water was only icy - from a pump nearby.
The only way to take a bath and get warm was by going to the public bath. This bath, by the way, has survived to this day. It has been standing since 1898, according to the inscriptions. It is located on the shore of the lake, where there was an ice-hole for fans of "extreme" recreation.
The first thing that I associated with baths was queues. The lines were long and irritated my childish impatience. We left our belongings in a room with unsightly iron lockers. They kept solely on their word of honor, but there was frankly nothing to steal in those days, so no one worried about the safety of "property".
The floor was tiled, but to reduce the risk of injury, it was protected by wooden boards. These boards were at a short distance from each other. I tried diligently not to hit with my legs in the intervals - it seemed to me that one wrong move, and a broken leg or neck is guaranteed. Everyone walked around the bathhouse barefoot - no one had ever heard of such privileged shoes as slippers or soap dishes.
A separate attraction was the huge and unusually loud aluminum basins. The noise in the steam room came not so much from conversations as from the constant clinking of basins. What a thunder there was if someone dropped this basin on the floor and it's not worth talking about. Instead of the washcloths familiar today, there were merry mills, which were made of tow and did not really like children's skin. After them I went out all red and itched.
The bathhouse became a real place for unexpected and pleasant meetings. Father often met his acquaintances in the steam room and struck up a "small talk". At this time, I occupied myself with simple toys, which I always took with me to the sauna, because without them bathing procedures seemed to me a terrible boredom.
The waiting room was crowned with a samovar. It was accompanied by simple tin cups (2-3 pieces for all), from which you could drink tea or hot water. My family didn’t like to stay for tea ceremonies, but sometimes I would persuade them to stay because I liked relaxing after the steam room. Then even hot water seemed to me in a special way.
The contrast between the bathhouse and my cold room, which I got into afterwards, was striking. Jumping under a cold, but incredibly soft blanket was a kind of hardening for me - feather beds instead of an ice hole.
Despite the fact that "experts" do not advise visiting the bathhouse at night, we always went in the evening. This did not prevent me from falling asleep almost immediately with a sound sleep.