History of the bathroom

The judge waved the flag, the athletes pushed on the oars, and on the water slid. .. baths. This competition is held once a year in a small town in the south of France. Races on the baths were born recently, but already have their own traditions. To the "vessels" do not turn over, wooden flaps are attached to their sides - balancers, and the result is a trimaran. Participants paint their unusual vehicles as fantastically and colorfully as possible. This is very important, because you can become a champion, coming to the finish line and the second, and even the third. Judges take into account not only the place occupied in racing, but also how the bathtub is decorated.

Roman baths.

Why do we need such competitions? What did the organizers like? Perhaps, that the competitions were unique and unrepeatable. Or maybe they wanted to glorify one of the most ancient inventions of people - a bath.

Habitual cast-iron bath. How little has it changed in the past centuries!

On the island of Crete in Greece, where archaeological excavations were conducted, ceramic baths were extracted from the earth. Their age is 2500 years, but compare these baths with modern ones, and you will be surprised by their similarity. There are even older baths - they are 5 thousand years old, they were found in India during the excavation of an ancient city. Almost every house in this city had a ceramic bathtub, and the sewage and water supply system was perfectly organized. Already in ancient times people have evaluated the healing properties of water. For 2 thousand years BC in the sacred Hindu books "The Science of Life" it was said: "The flow of water is beneficial, the water cools the heat of fever, is curative from all diseases."

But a special flowering cult of water reached in ancient Rome. The bathrooms were in very many private houses, in addition, public bathhouses operated. The very word "bath" comes from the Latin word "balneum" - "drive away the pain."For 200 years before Christ in Rome there were about 1000 thermal! All of them were built by order of the emperors and wore their names. Each ruler wanted to outdo his predecessor, and therefore there appeared grandiose constructions with rich furnish and complex devices.

Medieval Russian baths.

Almost 1800 years ago in Rome reigned emperor Marcus Aurelius North Antoninus nicknamed Caracalla. He was famous for bestial cruelty( it is difficult to count how many people were killed by his order), and also by the fact that at his command were built the thermae, in beauty and splendor with which none of the bathing establishments in the world could match - either in ancientcentury, nor at a later time. In each term, 2,300 people could wash themselves. There were swimming pools with cold, warm and hot water, rooms with individual baths, steam rooms, rooms for massage. But in the therms, from which now there are only ruins, not only washed - here they rested, listened to the lectures of philosophers, strolled through the gardens of courtyards.

Roman women loved to take baths and used all sorts of aromatic additives to the water. The wife of Emperor Nero, in order to preserve the whiteness of the skin, took a bath of donkey's milk!

In 79 AD, the eruption of the volcano Vesuvius occurred, at the foot of which was the city of Pompeii. The hot lava of the volcano did not reach the city. Due to this, it was not burnt, but was covered with a thick layer of volcanic rocks and ash( this tragic event tells the story of K. Bryullov "The Last Day of Pompeii" - it is in the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg.)

Medieval West European Baths.

Buried city for centurieswas preserved in the form that it had during the disaster. Thanks to this, probably, the bronze bath found during the excavations - one of the first metal baths - survived

In the Middle Ages, body care was considered a sin,and the hot water was expensive, and people did not bathe often, the bath was made by a wooden round or oval bucket, where buckets of hot water were poured in. But not everyone could afford to have such a bath, and it was rented. Two people sometimes got into the bath or used it alternately, without changing the water. In the 18th century, closed-seat sessile boots, about one meter in length, were popular in the ancient Greek model: they kept water hot for longer. By the way, one of the leaders of the French Revolution Marat was killed by a dagger in such a bath.

In Russia, the first mention of the bath is found in the ancient Russian chronicler XI - the beginning of the XII century Nestor, and in the XV century there were already public baths - monks of the Pechersky Monastery arranged a wash for themselves and parishioners. Went in large wooden tubs.

The mass production of metal baths in Europe was established by the French boiler-maker Level, who lived in the 17th century. He was not only a successful industrialist, but also a good inventor: he invented a special column in which water was heated. This type of bath for a long time remained out of the competition, and, probably, it was this bathroom that delighted the hero of the poem of VV Mayakovsky - the caster Ivan Kozyrev, who entered the new apartment:

But is our bath really perfect? Not at all. First of all, it is unsafe, especially for the elderly. A lot of injuries were received in the bath, including heavy ones. The American aeronaut John Glenn returned safely from space and died slipping in the tub. Therefore, the bath with the door, shown at the exhibition of inventions, did not arouse a smile: an old or sick person sometimes finds it very difficult to step over the side of a conventional bath.

What designers see the bath of the future? Comfortable reclining chair made of plastic, placed in a closed vessel with a hole for the head. On the control panel, which is located next to the seat, you can type the "program" of the entire water routine. The bathtub is supplied with water, in which colored balls from a soft colored sponge float. Water with the addition of various shampoos and emulsions begins to circulate, flowing around the body. Its composition and temperature can change automatically several times. And at the end of the procedure, the hot air streams will quickly drain you.

They say that the bath is going through a time of its second birth. But whatever designs are created, of course, it can not replace the famous Russian bath for the whole world.

Take note

Yellow spots on the tub and sink are cleaned by rubbing them with warmed vinegar, which is added a little salt.

So that the soap does not soak in the soapbox, it is possible to cut out a foam sheet with a size slightly less than the bottom of the soap dish and put it on the bottom. Soap will always remain dry.