Smoke sauna culture in Estonia: A queer feminist and intimate space

The smoke sauna, or suitsusaun, is an integral part of Estonian cultural tradition, deeply rooted in the Võro community in southeast Estonia. As primarily an everyday practice, it has the potential to be more than just a place of physical cleansing. The smoke sauna can open up an intimate space where people can relax and feel good together, regardless of their gender identity or sexual orientation. However, the space is not completely detached from social challenges.   

The tradition of the smoke sauna is interwoven with the daily life of rural Estonians, dating back centuries. The saunas were initially used for smoking meat and fish, as well as for personal hygiene. 

Unlike other types of saunas, the smoke sauna lacks a chimney, allowing the smoke to circulate within the  room before being released. The process is slow, requiring hours of preparation, but this ritualistic approach is integral to the sauna’s function as a space of peace and relaxation.  

The sauna is not only a place for physical cleansing but also a social place where families and communities gathered, exchanged stories, and performed rituals. Even after the Second World War, when many smoke saunas were converted into faster, chimneyed ones, the tradition of smoke saunas continued. Recognised by UNESCO as part of Estonia’s intangible cultural heritage in 2014, the smoke sauna remains a vital part of the country’s cultural fabric.

A safe space for vulnerability and community 

In Estonian culture, the smoke sauna has long established itself as a safe space, especially for women. Historically, it was the most sanitary room in the household, used for healing illnesses and even childbirth. 

Anna Hints’ documentary film Smoke Sauna Sisterhood portrays the transformative power of the smoke sauna. Hints describes it as a place where “magic happens”: the magic of being vulnerable and the magic of transformation that comes from deep connection with yourself and others. This sense of sisterhood, of communal support and shared experiences, is central to the smoke sauna’s role as a safe space. It allows for a release of emotions and a reconnection with oneself, free from social expectations and pressures.

Women are not the only ones to benefit; the smoke sauna can also offer a safe space for men, as the short film Sauna Day by Hints and Tushar Prakash depicts. The film emphasises the “fragility of perceived masculinity” in the sauna, and shows that intimate conversations can also arise through non-verbal communication and body language. The links between masculinity, vulnerability, and community illustrate that the smoke sauna has the potential to foster a deeper sense of belonging and challenge gender stereotypes.

The darkness of the sauna, as well as the slow process of heating it up, can create a safe environment of trust and openness where people can release not only physical impurities but also emotional burdens such as fears and insecurities together. The intimate atmosphere of shared vulnerability is central to the importance of the smoke sauna and offers the potential to make it a queer-feminist space. In this context, the smoke sauna can serve as an everyday place of relaxation and socialising that de-dramatise the body through non-sexual nudity, enabling a deep sense of connection. 

Queer feminist spaces in traditional sauna cultures  

Traditionally, sauna culture in Estonia is a gender-segregated environment — Hints focuses only on the experiences of white men and women in both their documentary and short film. Both show how entrenched social norms are within Estonian smoke sauna culture. At the same time Hints, who self-identifies as non-binary, emphasises the potential of the smoke sauna to break out of heteronormative gender roles. 

However, social norms and related power dynamics are challenges that affect who feels safe and accepted both inside and outside the sauna. 

“Saunas are part of Estonian culture, but LGBTQ individuals often feel uncomfortable visiting public saunas, because some people may have non-conventional bodies, and some LGBTQ individuals feel shy in spaces where they need to undress and expose their physical or emotional vulnerability,” Gulya Sultanova, the organiser of Q-Space, a queer cultural organisation in Estonia, says. 

To counter the challenges for a sauna in which queer people can feel comfortable, the anarcho-queer-feminist art project daylight project regularly organises queer saunas at Logi Saun in Tallinn. The queer sauna creates an everyday space for the queer community that exists beyond the activist context and creates a safe and non-judgemental space. These events promote awareness of the queer community and strengthen the growing LGBTQIA+ acceptance in Estonia by breaking down binary and heteronormative structures. Such concepts show how sauna spaces can be made more open and accessible to diverse identities. 

Smoke sauna between tradition and overcoming power structures 

Despite existing alternative concepts that may represent the beginning of a counter-narrative on a micro-social level, power dynamics that influence belonging and access to the sauna must be actively deconstructed in order to capitalise on the special nature of the smoke sauna as a truly inclusive space for all through its traditionally intimate and communally emotional atmosphere. Patriarchal norms, social inequalities, and ethnic, gender and sexual boundaries continue to characterise the sense of safety and acceptance in the sauna and beyond. In order to establish the smoke sauna not only as a place of relaxation, but also as a queer-feminist space for transformative experiences and social equality, it is necessary to overcome these deeply rooted structures.

By actively questioning and breaking down power structures, the smoke sauna can ultimately become a role model for how local and traditional practices rooted in heteronormative contexts can be changed and enriched and further developed through new, modern perspectives.