The cleanest house in the village

When people in the UK hear the word sauna, they usually think of relaxation…. a spa, hotel… maybe a gym.

Heat for the muscles. A cold plunge if you’re feeling brave.

But historically in Lithuania, the pirtis was something quite different.

It wasn’t exactly a luxury space.

It was the cleanest house in the village.

And because of that, it became the place where the most important moments of life happened.

Birth.
Healing.
Preparing the dead.
Rites of passage.

If you think about it, it makes sense.

A pirtis was heated to high temperatures. Steam purified the space. The air was hot, clean, almost medicinal. Compared to the smoky, dirt-floor houses of earlier times, the sauna was one of the few places where hygiene could actually be controlled.

So when a woman went into labour, she was often taken to the pirtis. Not for ritual performance or spiritual theatre, but because it was warm, clean and private.

The heat relaxed the body. Water was nearby. Herbs were available.

And the midwife knew the space well.

The same logic applied at the other end of life.

When someone died, their body would often be washed and prepared in the pirtis before burial. Again, not as some mystical act, but as part of a practical understanding of care and cleanliness.

The sauna was where the community handled life properly.

In Lithuanian culture there’s an old phrase that roughly translates to:

“The pirtis sees everything.”

Birth, illness, celebration, grief. All of it passed through those wooden walls at some point.

And this is something I think about often when I guide sauna today.

Because the modern wellness world sometimes frames sauna as a performance. A detox. A challenge. A ritual to optimise or conquer.

But the old pirtis culture was quieter.

More domestic.

More human.

People went there to sweat, yes - but also to talk, to wash, to rest, to tend to each other.

There was usually a table in the priepirtis (the changing room). Bread, cheese, pickles, sometimes smoked meat. People would sit, cool down, eat, and go back in again.

Nothing particularly glamorous.

Just heat, food, conversation, and bodies slowly returning to themselves.

That’s still the spirit I try to hold onto in my own work.

Not the performance of wellness.

But the older rhythm of the pirtis - where heat, plants, food, and community all belong to the same cycle.

Warm the body.
Wash.
Rest.
Eat.
Return.

Simple things.

But often the ones we’ve forgotten the most :)