Suzdal Sauna

'First banya then dinner,' says Sergei, who is coordinating my itinerary in the Golden Ring. 'When in banya, do only as long as your heart can take,' he adds. I laugh, but he isn't joking.

That evening, I meet a strapping youth outside the bathhouse. He raises a hand nonchalantly in greeting, and I get the impression he has better things to do on a Friday evening than tend to my banya. 'First sauna – fifteen minutes,' the young chap says, before leaving me to undress without wishing me an 'easy steam'.

I have sat in a few saunas before, though never for very long. My first experience was as a child when, after swimming lessons one afternoon, I managed to sneak into the men's sauna next to the changing rooms and singe my bottom on the bench. This time, as I step into the hot, womb-like darkness, I note that they have – with charming attention – laid out sheets for me to lie on, and left a fragrant (and reassuringly leafy) bundle of birch branches to soak in the corner.

Fifteen minutes is a long time in a sauna. First your skin prickles, then you begin to sweat – and sweat in earnest: great bucket loads streaming down your face to sting your eyes. Then – Sergei was right – your circulation really gets going, and you feel the thrashing thump of your heart in your chest. By the time the youth returns, stripped to the waist, I am recumbent in a puddle of sweat. He gestures at the upper bench and, light-headed, I obey.

It is definitely hotter up here – and it gets hotter by the minute as the youth douses the hot rocks with water, sending plumes of steam hissing into the darkness. Then he reaches for the birch branches and, with a great sweep of his arm, wafts the blistering air down on my flesh. I bury my face in the crook of my arm, feeling suddenly like a hobbit in a dragon's lair. I find myself panting. Am I hyperventilating? Hyperventilating isn't good. There is a strange salty taste on my lips, which I take a while to recognise as blood, not sweat – my parched lips have split in the heat.

And then he starts attacking me with the branches. Thwack, thwack, thwack! Lightly at first, so it feels as if I've fallen into a hellish pile of autumn leaves. Then, stripping off fistfuls of leaves, he starts thrashing me harder – though he must have been under orders to take it easy, so that I am not in danger of being birched within an inch of my life.

The session ends when the youth has had enough, and I emerge like a wilted lettuce to find that someone has set a small table for me with bottled water and a jug of red juice – both refreshingly cold. I have an overwhelming urge to fling myself into a deep snowdrift but, as it's too early in the season for snow even in these latitudes, I content myself with a cold shower instead.