Simon Mills I was sitting in an old bank in Belgravia, wearing only a pair of swimming trunks and a silly felt hat, ostensibly to keep my head cool. The temperature was 93 degrees Celsius and I was sweating profusely. I went to a Russian sauna, a “banya,” near Buckingham Palace to sweat out the filth of machismo and male shame, and to purge myself of stale alcohol and self-pity.
Soon I was about to be beaten by two muscular Russian guys, “banya men” (as they were called). They were punishing my body with “brooms” (branches of birch, oak and eucalyptus) in a suffocating, balletic, male “steaming” (sadomasochism).