Smoke Sauna Package at Mihkli Farm Museum

Come to Hiiumaa and experience an authentic smoke sauna at Mihkli Farm Museum! Renting the sauna for one evening costs 400 euros, and with the workshop it's 500 euros. In the workshop you'll get your hands soot-stained by heating the sauna — how exactly is that done? We'll also talk about sauna stories and customs that are specific to the people of Hiiumaa. The sauna at Mihkli Farm Museum is fairly large. Old Hiiumaa saunas were originally much smaller and had two rooms. This one, however, is already a three-part sauna building. It wouldn't have needed to be so large for a single family's needs, but it used to be common for people from neighbouring farms to take turns using the sauna. Perhaps for that reason, or simply because it was built to fit the lengths of the logs that were available. "You don't waste wood," the old people of Hiiumaa used to say. The exact age of this ancient sauna is unknown, but its construction year is sometimes recorded as 1910. Since smoke saunas often suffered fire accidents, that may have been the year it was repaired or rebuilt. The sauna held an important place in the life of Hiiumaa people, and not only because of the weekly wash. Babies were born in the sauna and people were sent on their last journey from there; children had their first haircuts there, and people were even punished there when necessary. As a place of healing the sauna was also indispensable. There people received massages and compresses, poultices were applied, and they were fanned with birch whisks to ward off colds. The sauna was also used for washing laundry, smoking meat, summer food preparation, or as a temporary dwelling.