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For most people, Krasnaya Polyana is famous as a world-class ski resort, but it also attracts other sorts of tourists...
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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...these are mainly well-to-do young professionals from the cities, who come here to unwind in the famous Caucasian banyas.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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This is a holiday destination for well-heeled people, who are prepared to spend money on nothing but the finest spa treatments.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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Here, people luxuriate in the hot water, enveloped in gentle swirls of smoke from a fire below.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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Here, people luxuriate in the hot water, enveloped in gentle swirls of smoke from a fire below.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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The tub, in which people are slowly “simmered” on a gentle heat, makes you start to think that not too far away there are probably little devils walking around with pitchforks, gathering wood to stoke up the blaze.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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A traditional Russian and Indian steam bath, and a herbal steam bath known as an “Ezhikha”.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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Once they can take no more of the steam bath, spa-goers quickly submerge themselves in a pool of icy spring water.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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Once they can take no more of the steam bath, spa-goers quickly submerge themselves in a pool of icy spring water.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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A fully-cooked, crinkly-skinned client is wrapped up in a blanket, and the cocooned bather is then placed on a swing outside under a big open sky.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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A few meditative swings later – and the client begins to feel a sense of peace and enlightenment, his consciousness leaves the body, he lets go and “drifts away into eternity”.
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
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He comes back to earth with a bump when he sees the bill…
Michael Mordasov / Focus Pictures
