Võro smoke sauna · savvusann

Smoke sauna words

In Võro, Estonian and Finnish, with old sayings and the evening step by step

In Võromaa, southeast Estonia, families still heat their saunas the old way, with no chimney, a UNESCO-listed tradition. Tonight you heat one and learn its words in Võro, Estonian and Finnish.

Savvusann is a free 3D browser game: build the fire, air out the fumes, throw the first steam and learn each word as you go. No sign-up, in English and Estonian.

Heat the sauna yourself

The words

The evening, step by step

1. Building the fire · keres
2. Heating the sauna · savvusann
3. Airing out the fumes · karm
4. Getting ready · valmis
5. The first steam · lõun
6. Farewell · vüürüs

Where the words come from

• Võro sau and Finnish savu both mean smoke and share a root. Standard Estonian uses a different word, suits. Compare savvusann and savusauna.
• The Võro, Estonian and Finnish words for sauna steam go back to an old word for breath or spirit.
• In western Finland the whisk is a vihta, in eastern Finland a vasta. Võro and Estonian say viht.
• Three Finnic names for the heap of hot stones: keres, keris and kiuas.

Old sayings

• Mine vihata sauna ehk rahata linna.

  Going to the sauna without a whisk is like going to town without money.

  Estonian proverb (Eesti vanasõnad 14069)
• Lase sant sanna, sant taht lavale kah.

  Let a beggar into the sauna and he wants up on the bench too. Give an inch, they take a mile.

  South Estonian proverb (Eesti vanasõnad 10164)
• Ega noid korsnaga sannu neh kiä kitä-ei.

  Nobody praises those chimney saunas.

  An old man from Rõuge, in Võro, on the newer chimney saunas (savvusann.ee)
• Sann om talorahva tohtre.

  The sauna is the farm folk’s doctor.

  Võro saying recorded in Vastseliina (Eesti murrete sõnaraamat, EKI)
• Kerik om sisest puhastamine, sann päält puhtass tegemine.

  Church cleans you on the inside, the sauna makes you clean on the outside.

  Võro saying recorded in Hargla (Eesti murrete sõnaraamat, EKI)
• Mingu ui tingäldä turgu, ei vihalda sanna.

  Don’t go to market without haggling, or to the sauna without a whisk.

  Võro saying recorded in Rõuge (Eesti murrete sõnaraamat, EKI)
• Küla saunad köetakse korda, jõululaupäeval kütab igaüks.

  The village saunas are heated in turn, but on Christmas Eve everyone heats their own.

  Estonian proverb from Saaremaa (Eesti vanasõnad 5046)

About the smoke sauna

• Old smoke saunas had earthen floors, and the stove was a loose heap of field stones, the kerisahi, stacked without mortar. The oldest were dug partly into the ground and roofed with earth.

  

• Chimney saunas spread in the early 1900s. From 1940 to 1970, southeastern Estonia and eastern Mulgimaa were the only places still building new smoke saunas.

  

• Written records mention Estonian farm saunas as early as the 13th century. A recent census counted 800 smoke saunas in Estonia in its first year, some of them 150 to 200 years old.

  

• Heating a smoke sauna takes six to eight hours. The door stays open while the fire burns, and the smoke, white when the fire burns clean, drifts out under the eaves. Then the fire is left to die and the smoke is let out before anyone bathes.

  

• The smoke sauna was more than a place to wash. Children were born on its upper bench, the sick were treated there, and meat was smoked under its rafters for two or three days.

  

• UNESCO added the smoke sauna tradition of Võromaa to its list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2014. The listing covers the whole practice: bathing customs, making whisks, building and mending saunas, and smoking meat.

  

• A sauna could also be a home. People in Hargla remembered that in the old days the poorer folk lived in saunas, and in Rõuge a family whose house burned down lived a whole year in theirs.

Heat the sauna yourself