Finnish sauna, tai chi and construction huts are cultural heritage

Finnish sauna: take care of the soul too

meLong before the Unesco resolution passed on Thursday, it had to be clear to all impartialists that Finland’s relationship with the sauna is a world heritage site. There are more than three million saunas for every 5.5 million Finns; Movies are made and songs are sung about the sauna in Finland; while sweating in the sauna, the Finns do business and politics, exchange news, take care of body and soul; Sauna is the only Finnish term that has been introduced into many other world languages ​​as a foreign word. Given these facts, the most surprising thing about the United Nations decision was that it was only taken now. The fact that perspiration services have what it takes to become a world cultural heritage is also nothing new. The smoke sauna, which is popular in Estonia, has been on the Unesco list for six years. It is comparatively primitive because there is no ventilation.

So how did it happen that the Finns were outmatched by the Estonians in this matter? Risto Elomaa, President of the Finnish Sauna Society, knows the answer. At his weekend home, which of course has its own sauna, he is currently receiving congratulations from around the world. “Finland only signed the agreement on the preservation of intangible cultural heritage in 2013,” it reports in the middle. “Before that, we just couldn’t apply.” Finns are generally praised for their progressiveness; in the World Heritage Treaty they were actually 151 states ahead of them, not just Estonia. Now the hot topic is over.

The sauna chairman is confident about the future, although public saunas are currently closed in much of Finland due to the corona epidemic. Inhalation of hot, humid air may be an effective prevention of Covid-19, Elomaa speculates, research is currently underway. And the other great scourge of humanity, global warming, is not a threat to sauna culture, on the contrary. The hot bath is not only a blessing in winter, with subsequent immersion in ice water. “I lived in Zambia for a while and of course I built a sauna there,” Elomaa reports. “A 40 degree outside temperature feels wonderfully cool when you run out of steam at 80 degrees.”

European construction huts: parable about perseverance

Unesco now includes the construction industry, that is, the traditions and techniques for preserving the great churches and cathedrals of Europe, as a practical example of “intangible cultural heritage”. Not that it’s remarkable. It is quite surprising that the entry happened only now. Because without the knowledge of construction sites that has been passed down from generation to generation, it simply would not have been possible to preserve large buildings such as the Cologne Cathedral or the Strasbourg Cathedral, which are essential for all of us to understand and experience what is the Christian-Western culture.

The application for the title of “intangible cultural heritage” was submitted by 18 construction sites from Germany, France, Norway, Austria and Switzerland. That is why all these construction huts, such as those in Aachen, Bamberg, Vienna and Xanten Dom, in the Dom St. Maria zur Wiese Soest, as well as in Basel, Freiburg, Ulmer and Schwäbisch Gmünder Münster or at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, they can be adorned with the title. The Dresden Zwingerbauhütte is the only secular building hut of the candidate group.