Russian Banya Tent: Ritual of Steam, Whisking, and Rebirth A few years ago we received an email from a Russian guy, Alexander Baybarin, who was seeking a cover for a Banya tent. We worked together with him to design it and came up with the right materials so the heat would be held inside. We […]
Russian Banya Tent: Ritual of Steam, Whisking, and Rebirth
A few years ago we received an email from a Russian guy, Alexander Baybarin, who was seeking a cover for a Banya tent. We worked together with him to design it and came up with the right materials so the heat would be held inside. We suggested an Alachigh which he thought was amazing, but we lost touch with him, he maybe used another tent instead. So we put it in the drawer of unrealised/onedaymaybe projects and then we reached into the drawer and this one came out.
The Russian Banya is like a sauna but unlike the dry heat of a Finnish sauna, the Russian banya is an intense, humid steam, or par. It’s a deep-rooted cultural tradition, a social ritual, and a powerful experience of purification and well-being. For centuries, this steam bath has been an integral part of life in Russia, where you emerge feeling, as the saying goes, “washed—born again”
Heart of the Heat: Steam and Humidity
Steam Room (Parilka): This is the core of the Banya. Heat is generated by pouring water over a stove containing heated stones. This creates thick, moist steam, with high humidity levels at temperatures that can be quite high.
“Black” vs. “White” Banyas: Historically, a “black banya” had no chimney, allowing the smoke to fill the room before eventually escaping, blackening the wood and imparting a distinct, primal scent. Modern “white banyas”use chimneys for a cleaner, more comfortable experience.
Banya Hats: Not just for show – It’s a crucial element of the Banya, used to protect your head and hair from the heat, preventing overheating and allowing you to stay in the Banya for longer.
So you enter the Banya….be prepared for a sudden rush of heat.
The Ritual Part: Parenie with a Venik
The most iconic and essential part of the Banya is the ritual known as Parenie (steaming/whisking), which involves the use of a Venik, a bundle of leafy branches, most commonly birch or oak, but sometimes eucalyptus. Beforehand, branches are soaked in hot water to soften the branches and release aromatic, beneficial essential oils.
The Venik Massage is a skilled, vigorous steam massage. Someone in the Banya with some experience will give this to you.
Waft Hot Air: They use the venik to drive the hottest steam down and across your body.
Massage and Exfoliate: The leafy bundles are used to gently massage, tap, and press the skin. This stimulates your blood circulation, exfoliates dead skin cells, and helps release toxins through intense sweating.
The venik ritual is therapeutic, invigorating, and fills the air with a beautiful, natural smell, making the experience totally deep and sensory.
Cold Water Plunge
After the intense heat of the parilka and the parenie ritual, the next step is a sudden, extreme cool-down.
The Social Experience
More than just a method of cleansing, the Banya is a social event.
Then you all eat meal together, cleansed of the body, with clear the minds, and feeling more bonded after the experience.
As you may be aware, if you are one of our regular clients we spend a lot of time in Italy, where we operate a cooperative for marginal rural areas. The last years were very full of coming and going, making it harder to find the time to update the blog, because when we are […]
As you may be aware, if you are one of our regular clients we spend a lot of time in Italy, where we operate a cooperative for marginal rural areas. The last years were very full of coming and going, making it harder to find the time to update the blog, because when we are back in Wales we are pedal to the metal with yurt covers usually. I will do my best to write more.
I have spent a lot of those last two years writing grants for various projects, to a point I was starting to be cast as a grant writer at times (something I detest). I have to admit though that writing EU Horizon grants was one of the most difficult things I ever done. I’ve written a grant for Heritage wheats all across Europe, trying to envisage a better future for rural farming, especially in marginal areas. It took four months. Bringing on 6-7 universities and joining them with some pioneers in the field of reintroduced heritage wheats was interesting, and I have developed a unique talent to bridge those two worlds, but it is the actual vision behind it all that talks to me most. Seeing what needs to take place, and then moving a million gears to make that happen, bringing players from all levels together, people who will never work with each other otherwise.
What grant writing has taught me is that there is a lack of vision in general, especially when it comes to rural planning. In the meantime, we also participated in a number of smaller grants, and through some weird coincidence, or maybe heavenly intervention if you want, we won two grants for experiential tourism, almost on the same day!, one in Italy from the Abruzzo region, and the other in Wales from Flintshire county council. Is someone trying to tell me something?
Like I always, I like to see events as map of sorts, and whilst I do feel like I am creating a new field of work, it is as if some force has brought me back to focus, back to tents (Yawn…)
I have written a lot about Glamping, and its role in the politics of rural areas for good and for bad, and also about nomadic structures, so I will not repeat all of that again. The task ahead is to tie those two grants together in some way, they represent two aspects of our life fields in which we are still pioneers if you want. The Welsh grant was for new machinery for tent making (a lot of it is welding equipment) and the Italian grant is for an equipment for medicinal herbs transformation and a laboratory. Tying them together and giving them an experiential tourism twist is also a little complicated; that is the problem with grants, you need to have a really clear vision of what you want to do before hand, and twist the grant towards it, because otherwise grants tend to turn your life around and you are running after the latest political invention or ecological greenwashing, and one day you wake up and you have become a Greta Thunberg for things you don’t believe in, or at least not enough to spend all your time on. Like I said the problem I that there is no vision for territorial rural planning, and that after 200 years of industrialisation the world has forgot a lot.
Now that rural design is becoming my new field of passion, I want apply the same logic to tent making. Imagine that we had to rethink tent design from the ground up, so much is wrong in tent architecture, and made worse by lousy industrialised processes, having worked with over 400 campsites, and endless private clients, you would not believe the tents that people bring to market. It is almost always the rule that the first yurt someone makes is of better quality then half of the stuff on the market, which is unique to this industry. In short as an industry we lost the passion for fabrication and invention of the best quality tents, or the import market has tired most involved beyond caring. I am looking into a new system feeling like I would like to explore tent making forms in a free hand way, after all we can cover any given shape with canvas, and so why limit the frames?
For the next step of this journey I have picked a sauna tent design I worked on with someone a few years ago, he wanted to create a tent for his Russian Banya business in the US. We got as far as coming up with a basic design, but took it no further, it joined the myriad of drawer dreams as Lidia calls them. My idea is to use the Russian Banya idea he introduced me to in some way that can use the medicinal herbs extracts from the Italian grant.
I am going to use the same metal bracket and curved beam construction we used before for the frame, use a felt liner for the internal structure and canvas for the outer, there is a problem with the sauna vapours and the canvas but lets leave that for now.
The idea of using the hydrolate (the byproduct from essential oil extraction) which is like a water with plant essence, came to us by mistake a year ago, when we were steaming yurt trellis. I was thinking about woodworm, and thought maybe if we put some essential oil in the steamer this would impregnate into the wood and could preserve it better by deterring bugs. Because we had bottles and bottles of Hydrolate left from distilling lavender with a woman we worked with in Italy, I thought maybe we can try and use that. Whilst it was in the steamer and opening the door to get the wood out I got an amazing vapour bath every time I opened it, this resulted in me fully immersing my head in the steam pipe for a few minutes, and believe me it was amazing!
So this is the plan, tying all the above elements together, new tent design to include curved metal and wood work, improved cover canvas work, new tent forms and shapes inspired by natural nomadic designs but breaking away form historic concepts that are no longer a parameter. And it ties toghether two different experiential tourism grants in order that they do not run me and instead I can use them to further our plans for rural areas regeneration in tandem. Like I tried to explain the problem with industrialisation is that people specialised in one given product, but without any connection to anything else, so everything is a little detached from everything else. Tents or shelters in general have become a little limited in that.
We would try to revive our newsletter for whoever wants to keep up with this journey (you can subscribe at the bottom of the home page) and progress. The idea is to inspire others too, to design better structures and higher quality tents, to bring manufacturing back to this side of the world. We call this programme Best in Tents, where once a year we pick a design and help someone realise it.
Ascoli Satriano Reenactment Fields, Italy This year’s ancient warfare reenactment at Ascoli Satriano was a journey back to the Roman-Samniti wars, reviving a fierce and often overlooked rivalry—the Samnites versus the early Roman Republic. Alongside the historical combat and the authenticity of the costumes, it was the unexpected presence our Baby Alachigh, aka The Nomadic […]
Ascoli Satriano Reenactment Fields, Italy
This year’s ancient warfare reenactment at Ascoli Satriano was a journey back to the Roman-Samniti wars, reviving a fierce and often overlooked rivalry—the Samnites versus the early Roman Republic. Alongside the historical combat and the authenticity of the costumes, it was the unexpected presence our Baby Alachigh, aka The Nomadic Hotel.
⚔️ Recreating the Clash: Rome vs. the Samnites
The reenactment was based loosely on the Battle of Sentinum (295 BC), one of the most pivotal engagements of the Third Samnite War. Dozens of reenactors, clad in linen tunics, leather sandals, armour, ornate belts, bronze helmets and shields showing their tribal allegiance, recreated the organised might of the Roman legions and the fierce, guerilla-style resistance of the Samnite tribes.
Spectators lined the hills as Roman centurions barked commands in Latin, leading maniples in tight formation. Across the field, the Samnites appeared in asymmetric war gear—fitting for a people who fought from mountainous terrain and used surprise and mobility as their greatest weapons.
🏕️ The Alachigh Tent: A Symbol of Spirit and Sanctuary
At the edge of the Samnite camp stood something unfamiliar to many: a rounded, canvas-covered Alachigh, its curved wooden frame up to a metal wheel with its outer walls catching the light of the morning sun. Traditionally used by nomadic tribes of Iran—especially the Shahsevan—the Alachigh served here not just as a visual focal point, but as a symbol of the Samnite fighting spirit.
Though not historically Samnite, the tent was intentionally placed as a creative interpretation—a tribute to the resilience, adaptability, and tribal unity the Samnites embodied. Inside the tent, reenactors held pre-battle plans, had food at the traditional table and snored between battles.
The contrast between this circular, communal space and the rigid geometry of Roman and Samnite camp tents gave guests a visual metaphor: freedom versus order, tribal memory versus imperial discipline.
🛡️ The Power of Immersive History
More than just a battle recreation, the event was a living museum. From a parade though the local town to exhibitions of shields and chain mail to Roman pottery to a stall demonstrating Roman wooden games to samples of Roman food to the beautiful, colourful ballerinas.
Clashing shields, and choreographed charges made the battlefield feel electric with tension and history and the end of each of the two days, all the soldiers, stood up from the ground where they had been killed and marched in form to dramatic music. Everyone watching was awed by the way it would have felt in ancient times.
The inclusion of the Alachigh tent, though not traditionally Italic, reminded all who attended that history isn’t just about what happened—it’s about how we choose to remember and retell it.
Live in Hope, die in Caergwrle, Wales
And then back in Wales….we were contacting by a guy who lives in Hope, Flintshire (yes that’s the town’s real name), and wanted a cover for their Kazakh yurt, which is is a bentwood yurt with a high pitched roof. There is a saying about the neighbouring villages there which is: “”Live in Hope, die in Caergwrle”. The phrase is thought to originate from a time when people who were drunk were kept in a lock-up at the base of Caergwrle Castle overnight, implying they’d “die in Caergwrle” after “living in Hope”.
Park in The Past
He has this place in Hope, called “Park in the Past” which is the only purpose built, Roman fort, in the country and it was a dream of Paul’s (the main guy) for years until he found the right place to ground it. It’s a beautiful location, set on a magnificent lake where a pair of beavers that had magically appeared. Roman tents, conservation, a fort and a beautiful massive wooden structure, for theatre, story telling of ancient times, and possibly costumed weddings. Loads of potential and ideas. It has been visited by a lot of school children, to take them back to the Past visits and the Flintshire County Council Tourist has just woken up to the potential of this resource. https://parkinthepast.org.uk
The thing is the connection between Central Asia and the Roman Empire. There was a path along the Silk Road connecting indirectly Rome and Central Asia. The Romans were partial to their gemstones, spices and silk, the most famous and sought-after commodity, which gave the trade route its name. Its’ popularity became a symbol of extravagance. The Romans knew little about its origin, with some believing it grew on trees. I don’t believe there was, an ancient connection in tents but for Romans to circle the square.
We have gone back down to Italy to do some work on our new land and to do some of our non profit work for the heartland association. In between all the Italian mountain madness, endless lunches, voyages to abandoned villages and so many meetings, we also finalised our smaller alachigh concept tent. We are […]
We have gone back down to Italy to do some work on our new land and to do some of our non profit work for the heartland association. In between all the Italian mountain madness, endless lunches, voyages to abandoned villages and so many meetings, we also finalised our smaller alachigh concept tent.
We are making this tent for an amazing guy called Andrea from the mountain village of Palena, who runs reenactment and historical events in costume. Over 5 years now we have developed an amazing idea, for a nomadic hotel, a new horizon in sustainable tourism, directed for rewilding and safari projects, but one that suits his ideas and work, and is prefect means to explore Italy’s secret region of Abruzzo, one of the wildest mountains regions in Europe.
Like our larger Alachigh concept tent this one relies on a rib and connector system, a welded stainless steel wheel, and bottom brackets. Arguably the bottom wooden ring could have been avoided if this tent was to be pitched on a deck, but because we want it to be put up at the end of a day journey at some of the most remote high meadows of Abruzzo, the bottom ring was needed.
You can see the bottom brackets better in this picture below. Its also a little clearer how the bolts work to hold the bottom ring tension, and to lock the rib.
We have set up a new company concept top deal with these new tents, as part of our work to make sure some nomadic tent forms would not get extinct, and like we said the Alachigh which is arguably the best looking nomadic tent in existence, has always too little attention in the west, whilst thousands of yurts were made or imported into Europe there are maybe ten to fifteen examples of Alachighs made, to fight this we have come up with a dedicated concept which we are now turning into the Alachigh company . I argue that whilst we are already building this new company, and looking for someone who may want to buy it as a stand alone business, I also wanted to explore new tourism angles.
I have spent days on end talking with Andrea on how we can create this nomadic hotel, and our 7m Alachigh model was the perfect tent in my mind. It takes one person to set up, the wheel could be lifted with one hand, the 4.5m ribs weigh very little, and can be transported on a roof rack of any 4×4 to the remote locations we see it pitched on. The idea for this new hotel, is to have groups travelling in remote areas, arriving at a secluded location, one that celebrates the best nature a region has, but at the same time I wanted it to take people into contextual tourism, exploring a region in a new way. Andrea has given me endless ideas, in fact it is hard to stop him sometimes, and focus on an end product as he seems to drift into fantasy. But the idea of historical context of a people in a given area, like the Samnites of Abruzzo as a way to explore indigenous culture as a new type of ecological tourism is something that I am really inspired by.
We aim to combine mountain journeys, with archeo foods, taking people into the wildest locations yet arriving at a tribal encampment, with hosts dressed in tribal clothing. Rewilding projects are now popping up like mushrooms after the rain, those are mostly efforts by larger bodies and estates, sometimes when traditional farming is abandoned, what we feel is missing out of most of those is the human element, a way those can turn into rural living schools, and so from a bespoke tourism point of view, teaching people how indigenous groups lived in a given territory, and allowing them to explore low impact and natural connection, travelling not only to a location but into another time is to me the highest form of innovation for ecological tourism.
I was going to end making this tent with the same door design that we used for our larger 10m Alachigh tent, but that morning Andrea again came to examine how I was getting along. He looked at the door I fabricated that morning and decided he did not like it at all.
He just came back from a large gathering of lord of the rings type festival, his mind full of elves and hobbits, he insisted we must be more artistic in our design, so we went for a double curvature on the door poles too.
This was a little of a nightmare to get right because of all the welded angels, plus it created a little pooling issue on top of the door, which we decided to deal with by using three arches on the porch/door.
All in all the tent took quite an interesting shape, even if I had to spend a few more mornings welding brackets at weird angles, it proved the point that the rib and bracket design could in fact accommodate and given shape which is its beauty and the design concept behind bringing those tents back. We replaced both the tension bands and the need for a central anchoring with this new system. I think a little more perfection of the angels top play between the various tensions could be perfected, but this would come with new trial. It is hard to strike a balance between new design and what the market is already used to. We are committed to bringing a higher level of tent design back into the centre of the tourism industry. Contact us to discuss these new tents, or if you also have an urge to create a new type of tourism experience.
There has been a little lull in the UK Glamping industry this year, coming on the back of it’s crazy drive to milk clients out of every penny, peaking with the insane adventures of covid era, and some bad decisions. This has seen a lot of our clients suffering, because of the actions of a […]
There has been a little lull in the UK Glamping industry this year, coming on the back of it’s crazy drive to milk clients out of every penny, peaking with the insane adventures of covid era, and some bad decisions. This has seen a lot of our clients suffering, because of the actions of a few, and even though they believe that those will fall by the way side, leaving people that actually have a passion for outdoor hospitality to rebuild, some damage has been done, in fact it still is being made not only by hospitality providers but by many retailers and structure providers.
We work with up to half of the UK tented campsites, some on regular basis. Our clients are reporting occupancy rates going down from 85% to 40%. This I am afraid to say was predictable with some of the low quality rush to make as much money as possible during covid. But this is another subject.
So although this meant some of our livelihood was affected, I do love those lulls in the industry. Because they push us to innovate, to rethink. In a sense I think there has been too much money thrown at this industry over the years, with some yurts being sold for 20 thousand, and remembering that when it all started over 25 years ago the very same yurts cost fifteen hundred pounds. So the industry has gotten a little drunk on money. Having a moment away from cover making allows us to raise our heads from the machine, and focus on some of the ideas that have been spiralling in our heads between all the seams.
We have started a campaign against the endless stream of retailers and structures that are currently flooding the market, aiming to bring those back into the hands of the makers. Our dream is to see people steaming hard wood again, sewing canvas, working with felt and stainless steel, forging elements, and bringing high quality hand made products back into creation. Above all we are dreaming new venues for giving people a little more freedom and imagination in hospitality, because the rustic, the love of nature, or more so falling in love under canvas, lying by a fire is what this is all about.
Our current project is focused on the Alachigh tent form, it is an Iranian tent, rumoured to have been created because of the ban on trellis tents, resulting in a rib (or rafter if you like) only tent. Peter Alford Andrews who is a good friend and the world’s authority on nomadic tent architecture, a person we feel is the unsung hero of the rise of nomadic tents doing such a comeback, has been an invaluable source of information over the years, has helped us a lot to think about this tent form. We have an aversion of people copying each other, or worse still stealing each other designs, which is another reason we focus on this tent, because it has seen only little attention in the UK and no where else otherwise, except of course in Iran.
It is one of the most elegant tent forms ever created, but it also always had issues. Its main problem was that the long rafters that it uses require long lengths of wood, which are not always available, this is truer the bigger it gets, with lengths over 4.5m. Steam bending such lengths though we have found out is actually fairly easy, in fact where we would usually use a dedicated jig, we found out we can easily form a couple of ribs, and after those have been bent to the right shape, using the traditional method of a wooden beam with two strong pegs to slowly shape the rafters.
Then we could easily use those initial rafters as a jig. Meaning that any given size of Alachigh could be made without needing to resort to making a new jig with a different diameter every time. Why does this matter? Because not only we are trying to bring this tent back into more focus, we are aiming to create a new business for making this tent form so it would not go extinct.
The next issue with this tent form, is that the long rafters tend to “spiral collapse” as we call it, a problem that traditionally was resolved by applying tension by pegging the wheel to the ground, a little like tipis are anchored.
The traditional method of stabilising the rafters was by using two bands that wrap around each rafter going from one rafter to the next, those are then lowered down and so tensioned to pull the rafters in at the bottom, keeping the curvature of the tent and maintain the rafters straight, so in a sense this whole tent functions under tension, where a yurt only has tension at the meeting of the roof rafters and the trellis.
The few examples that have been made of this tent in the country have at times missed that last part, resulting in the rafters not being held straight, or the tent itself being a little unhinged. There have been a couple of attempts to stabilise those with ground sheet sleeves, but those have not been sufficient.
From a design point of view we have looked into two modes of resolving this issue, in fact to deal with it we have had to make two structures, one which we tested on a smaller (7m) tent with long rafters to test the tension band approach, this was traditionally the biggest size used, with a 32 rafter being reported as the biggest size ever made.
The other which is much bigger (9m) applies a more modern approach of creating a fixed ring of wood and connectors. This approach has been tried with some modern Glamping tents, but in a way those we felt were a little too modular. As those tents use a CNC cut plywood for the wooden parts, and a screw on connector. They tend to leave one with the impression of being inside a kit car or a model shop rather than a nomadic structure.
In our minds if modern methods are used, one should not skim on the hand made manufacture feel to such a degree that the charm of the tent looses appeal. This happens all the time unfortunately, in fact as a manufacturer of framed tents (as opposed to velum tents which use guy ropes) for commercial ends, one usually looks to having a modular repeatable process, which is easiest done with having plywood cut to round shapes on a CNC machine. This is the approach for modular Glamping structures, and even some Shepard hut makers, and whilst this make a lot of sense from a business point of view which is important as hand made manufacturing has limitations when it comes to repeated multiplication, a lot is lost in the translation. As with it goes most of the charm of the tent, and its rustic beauty.
We tried to draw a line between going too modern and sticking too much to the traditional. This is because we could be said to be too much of the traditionalist at times, and in a sense more than the tent itself we like to push ourselves as tent makers into new places, where we feel it is easier to have made things in a certain way, or have all thew right machinery, we instead focus on keeping ourselves as small as possible as a company, and doing things with as little tools as possible to make the tent making art grow rather than the size of the operation, as after all we feel that a low foot print and nomadic flexibility have always been important to us. This approach meant that we have seen most of this industry come and and go, building companies and selling them, or worse going bankrupt, whilst we always enjoyed a central place in the industry. This is another design element we try to implement and encourage others to follow, and one we aim to install into this new venture which will hopefully become a stand alone business.
For the larger tent ribs not to end up as an impossible length, more from transporting point of view, we used a split rib and connector design and laminated the wood for uniformity, even though those can easily be steam bent too, if done correctly, trying to crate a more uniform shape.
For the wheels I’ve opted for welded mild steel or stainless design mostly because I have wanted to see if replacing yurt wheels with steel could also be done elegantly. Those copy that original form but allows for outer metal sleeves to hold the ribs from collapsing sideways too, and though the normal wheel with its square holes does this to a degree it does not do it well enough, which was a design defect traditionally, so steel has also offered a benefit.
The last major issue of redesigning this tent, was that of the doors. There was a similar looking tent used by the Turkmen, traditionally being a hand-me-down yurt with the trellis which was old being discarded and the rafters only used as a very low tent for cooking, or for poorer families who could not afford to have full yurt made. This form has resulted in a higher rib tent, like the Alachigh in one place that has eventually also used a wooden door. The problem of the wooden door was that it called for a rebalancing of the Alachigh shape, calling it to be made higher with more vertical upstaged at the bottom of the rafter, which took away some of the elegance making the tent more dome-like. It also asks the door to stand outside of the structure, even if the rafters are lengthened. A dormer door always takes away form the beauty of a round structure, in our view at least. Which is what we are working on right now, to test the different approaches we would probably end up with a fixed door for the bigger structure and look to develop a canvas door that mimics the Shasevan design.
Keep your eyes peeled as we complete those two structures over the summer, the large one will be up for sale as an event space, standing at 30ft diameter, and is the only one of its kind in the country. The smaller one is made for a unique business plan we have of a pop up hotel for nomadic expeditions so we would probably keep it for that purpose. Like many of our other projects we also intend to turn these into a business that could either work directly with us or become its own stand alone operation, in which case we would look to help its owner taking the design form of this tent in at least those two approaches above, and work with them on making a bespoke canvas cover with some exciting elements we have had in mind for a while whilst sewing over a thousand yurt covers. We have created a dedicated website for this new venture here hoping to turn it into a unique business we run or sell that can focus on bringing this tent into the market and so saving the most elegant of all traditional nomadic tents from disappearing. also look at our Handmade Hand page if you have a similar passion and have your own new tent design in mind, as we can help you with a similar product design process, as long as you commit to making it by hand.