Tag Archives: swimming

At the Szechenyi Baths


Posted by Patrick Okens

Dec. 29 – Budapest, Hungary

I came to Budapest for the water, but I was not the only one. The city is famous for the many thermal springs which attracted first Romans and Turks, then Hungarians, and now tourists.

Prepaid ticket in hand, I approached the magnificent 98 year-old Szechenyi Bath in the city’s central park. It is a venerable institution in Budapest – the Maracana Stadium of bathing, one of the world’s biggest spa complexes. And unfortunately, like the Maracana for a Brazil futebol match, it was packed. The anteroom, all columns, domes, mosaics and statues, resounded with confused foreigners trying to get in and resigned cashiers and gatekeepers explaining that there were insufficient lockers to accommodate the Holiday crowd.

After an enjoyment-sapping long time, I finally got a locker key and headed into the men’s change area. In my swim trunks, and clutching a towel, cap and goggles, I ventured to the outdoor pools. There was enough uncertainty involved in this process – wandering semi-naked through areas where most people were fully clothed – to discourage me from looking for the smaller hot pools.

In any case I was interested in actual swimming and the main pool offered that. Swim caps were mandatory, a rule rigorously enforced by vigilant whistle-blowing monitors. “Ah bon” I heard more than once after a guard gave a stern hand-to-head gesture “il faut avoir un bonnet.” I did my lengths guided by underwater lights. Around me, a variety of figures moved through the water, some stately and ponderous, some twitchy-limbed. I would pause, cold air embracing my exposed shoulders, and look at the dark night sky. Contemplating the pale yellow glow of the graceful building, it seemed amazing to me a century ago, a monarchy had produced such a lavish structure for public recreation.

Workout done, I moved into one of the hot pools that flanked the main pool. Dozens of bathers lolled in the steaming water, an enormous natural jacuzzi. Excited tourist families, embracing couples, matronly ladies chatting. Geysers bubbled and frothed from the bottom, and bathers improvised an astonishingly strong whirlpool. I had noticed a sulfurous smell earlier, but no longer. I looked around me at relaxed, happy people, and thought “hot water is civilization.”


Procedural hurdling at the Olympic pool


Posted by Patrick Okens

Dec. 14 – Moscow

The Luzhniki sport complex looks tired anyway. But add wet snow and gloomy skies above, and take away all the people, and it’s a completely somnolent landscape. Big structures all hunkered down for the winter. At the entrance, I guessed right (which was wrong) and went past the Ice Palace where the 1972 Summit Series took place, past soccer pitches, running tracks, a driving range. I crossed vast, empty parking lots and then back around the big, beige Olympic Stadium before finally getting to the Olympic pool.

Here is how the pre-swim went:

  1. Go to the window to pay. Clerk scribbles “11:40”. A ten-minute wait.
  2. At 11:40, go back to pay, slide my passport and 300 Rubles ($10) through the slot. Clerks says “spravka”. I shrug my shoulders, she gives my back my passport and money. Nyet so far.
  3. I remember that at many Russian pools, swimmers must present some kind of certificate of physical fitness, and that this can be obtained on site.
  4. I wander the halls, and find a door with a red cross on it. Inside is an idle old man (a physician? a nurse?) in a white smock. I say “spravka?” hopefully. He nods wearily, looks at my passport, asks me some questions I don’t understand. I respond in English anyway. He takes a slip of paper, stamps and signs it, and gives it to me.
  5. Back at the window for a third time, I slide money, passport and oh-so-important “spravka” in. Success! I’m given a plastic claim tag.
  6. Across from the cash is a coat check. I leave my jacket there and get another plastic claim tag.
  7. I enter a corridor looking for the men’s changeroom, but find only the ladies’. At length, I’m directed to the other side of the pool.
  8. Before entering the changeroom, I’m made to remove my boots and put them in a plastic bag. Then, in exchange for the first claim tag, I get a locker key from yet another attendant.

About to swim towards the light.

The pool is being renovated, and the change and shower facilities are clean and new.  Access to the pool itself requires a baptism of sorts. Down some steps into the water, then underwater through a small gate and channel. A bit freaky, but keeps people from getting cold – it is an outdoor pool. Steam rises from the water as I swim, looking at the tiles on the bottom. It’s not crowded. Women and men stick to separate halves. Between lengths, I look up at the empty grandstands, and beyond at the Olympic Stadium’s roof. I decide not to put myself through a virtual challenge against the 1980 East German women’s swim team. Swim over, I go through the multiple-tag-returning procedure in reverse.

I walk along the silent, dark Moskva to the Novodevichy convent and cemetery. A UNESCO site, the convent is high-density worship. Inside the walls are four onion-domed churches, and one cathedral. The cemetery is the final resting place for Russian notables. Khrushchev and Yeltsin, not considered worthy of burial in the Kremlin, are here. Tourists enter, camera at the ready, as if they’re on some kind of famous, dead Russian safari. But it’s much too miserable and soggy to spend much time among tombstones. I’d rather be buying groceries, and leave.