Sauna water marathon - from Tampere to Stuttgart

The Sauna Water Marathon took place for the first time. A sauna bucket with pure Finnish Löyly water travelled 3,000 kilometres from Finland to Germany through hundreds of hands and transports the message and soul of the Finnish sauna to the International Sauna Congress, which took place parallel to interbad in Stuttgart. The aim iswas to celebrate the beautiful and simple Finnish sauna culture and to make it better known in Germany.

It was a bit like the Olympic torch relay, only with sauna water. Anyone could take part in transporting the bucket from A to B and organise an event in connection with it.

It started on Finnish Sauna Day (11 June 2022) in Tampere, Finland. From there, the bucket travelled to Helsinki and boarded the Finnlines ferry, which brought it safely across the Baltic Sea to Travemünde. In Stralsund, the bucket was transferred from a sailing ship on the open sea to a rowing four, then through a relay race finally to a festival with Finnish interludes such as the Mölkky game.

The bucket has also been transported by horse, scooter, bicycle, SUP board and, of course, on foot. There were no limits to creativity. So far, the bucket has been through dozens of events on the theme of sauna and Finland and arrived in Stuttgart at the end of October. 

The ceremonial final infusion of this month-long marathon were made by the Finnish Ambassador to Germany Anne Sipiläinen on 25 October at the opening of the International Sauna Congress.