Black Sea Spa in Sochi Russia

Black Sea Spa

The spa is at Hotel Adelphia.  It is in Adler, Russia right on the Black Sea, about 10-15 minutes from the site of the 2014 Sochi Olympics.  The staff is quite charming, and many are competent in English.  The hotel restaurant has a full menu of food and drinks; it is nice because it is open 24 hours every day.  They also have a “roof” on the 6^th floor where friends and colleagues can gather around coffee tables and sofas to discuss business over cocktails, or jokes over whiskey; all this with an almost 360 degree view. 

You want to feel, so you do it.  Your swimsuit is on.  Your shirt and shoes are off.  The security gate feels cold.  The guard buzzes you inside.  You walk along a dark grayish corridor down small steps.  You take a right turn along the shiny marbled walls into the staging area.  You store your watch, wallet and shoes into the boxed storage shelf, and grab a towel.  You walk into a large room with low ceilings.  Marble is everywhere.  Shiny marble is everywhere.  The steam room is ready.   Open the door, and walk in.  You can breathe the water vapor in the air.  Your lungs can take it, strangely enough.  You sweat.  You sweat some more.  Turn on the water faucet, and fill a metal bowl with tepid water.  Pour it over your head; it feels like cold water in the steam.  You shiver from the cold shock.  Then, you feel the hot steam.  You sweat again – you sweat some more.  You get up to leave, you feel the hot air enclosing around your body.  You reach for the door and hope it opens.  It does. 

You are back in the main room.  To your right is the hot room without steam.  You enter and see brown wood everywhere.  There is a furnace to the left with hot rocks stewing over the intense heat.  It is somewhat dark.  You can barely see the wood grain.  Again, you sweat, but you do not feel the steam at your face.  You breathe in – heat fills your lungs hot as fire.  The air surrounding you is hot like a warm summer’s day, but perhaps five times as hot.  You sweat some more.  Then, you stand up and walk to the door.  You are back in the main room. 

You walk to a small pool about five times the size of a bathtub.  Your hand in the water feels like an icy glass of water.  You climb down into the pool.  Toes first.  It is icy cold.  Next, your legs.  You shiver.  Your stomach goes below and you gasp for breath.  Now, your neck is below the water and you are in a large glass of ice.  You move your body and the cold tightens around your entire body.  Soon, you have enough of the cold, and you climb the ladder out of the ice pool.  You immediately jump into the adjacent pool at room temperature and relax.  Your muscles thank you. 

The adjacent room has a treadmill.  Beyond the treadmill, there is a kitchen and dining room.  The dining table has perhaps 8 seats.  There are two sofas beneath a large television.  You chat with friends and colleagues (or perhaps with a few locals, maybe) around the table and at the sofa.  Then you go through the spa once more in the steam room, the hot room, the ice pool, and then on to the regular pool. 

You brought a guitar with you.  You get out of the main pool.  You sing “Home Sweet Home” by Motley Crue to the top of your lungs.  You can see out of the basement window the silhouette of tourists and locals slowing down, and peering down into the lower floor wondering who is having a good time in the Russian spa.

From Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport, the Adler-Sochi airport is a 2.5 hour flight.  Hotel Adelphia is a 30 minute taxi ride from the airport.  Go to the roof and order vodka with ice.  Chat with friends for an hour.  Then make your way back to the floor level, go out the front door and to the right side alley, and make you way along the Black Sea for a half-hour stroll.  Watch the sun set over the water as the waves crash into the rocks on the beach.  Bring your camera, because you will likely see a few model-quality girls out there too taking in the rays of the setting sun.

Freddy Martini