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Tampere: Sauna Capital of the World
Coming Soon
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24m
Tampere holds more public saunas than any other city in Finland, and this film moves through them the way locals do — from Rajaportin, where one bather recalls his first löyly as a boy, to Rauhaniemi, a lakeside sauna community members describe mourning in advance of its renovation. In Hämeenkyrö, a group of volunteers who built and run their own smoke sauna walk through the process in full: the four-hour heat-up, the lid placed over the stones once the fire dies down, the first "carbon monoxide löyly," and the ventilation that has to be sized just right. What comes through isn't a tourist itinerary but a civic habit — sauna as something a city maintains together, and mourns when it changes.