Culture : Grin Reapers: A Sure Cure for the Gripes in Moscow : When inflation, crime and political turmoil get them down, Russians take in a puppet show or splurge on a steam bath, just to stay sane.

It was Thursday afternoon at the banya and two dozen women wearing nothing but flip-flops and wool hats moved through the various stages of the bathhouse ritual--first sweltering in a steam room, next jumping into a pool of icy water and then massaging each other with coffee grounds and cornmeal.

They started their weekly cleansing rite with the gloomy expressions for which Muscovites are famous. But by the end of the first of five rounds in the steam, the grimaces had melted into satisfied grins.

“There is no place in Moscow where you can see as many smiles as in the banya, “ said Tatyana Shevchenko, 50, a candy factory worker, who, as the honorary drill sergeant, tells the women when to move from the steam room to cold showers and when to return to face the moist, mentholated heat.

Despite soaring prices, a growing crime rate and overwhelming uncertainty about the future as this nation undergoes sweeping changes, many Russians--somehow--still find the occasion for a smile, a laugh, a giggle, even a chortle.

In most public places, grins are rare. It’s not just that daily miseries are formidable--perfunctory smiling is just not a national character trait, Russians themselves readily acknowledge.

But in the banya-- traditionally a place both for social bonding and sweaty self-indulgence--tensions dissolve, an aura of well-being takes over, and people cannot help but smile. Men bring beer or vodka to the bathhouse. Women bring all kinds of natural concoctions, such as cream cheese masks, to baby their skin.

Regulars praise the wonders of a two-hour session.

“Russian women have so many problems these days,” Vera Zaitseva, 38, said as she rubbed a textured sponge over her body. “This is where we come to forget about everything and get rid of all the week’s muck--emotional and physical.”

Lyubov Ureshnikova chimed in with her cure for the Moscow blues--one even better than the banya . “Tea with berries and a man in your bed--that’s the best remedy!” the stocky blonde said to the merriment of her bathhouse cohorts.

Although prices on some staples such as butter are a whopping 100 times higher than before Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin lifted state subsidies earlier this year, many people still manage to splurge on special occasions, covering their tables with food in typical Russian fashion.

In one of the faceless prefab high-rises on the outskirts of Moscow, six glasses of vodka were hoisted the other evening as the oldest man at the table offered a “toast for the women present.” It was Natasha Yegorova’s birthday, and her father, mother, husband and closest friends had gathered around a table to celebrate the occasion in the most Russian of ways.

Russians are renowned for sitting around a table for hours toasting, telling jokes and arguing over politics. In this case, the zastolye , or feast, had been going on for two days.

There was no skimping for Yegorova’s birthday. The table groaned with salads, appetizers made from old family recipes, homemade apple juice, pickled vegetables grown at the family dacha and preserved by Natasha, and for dessert, cake and ice cream.

“Life is hard these days, but we try to keep up the old traditions of gathering friends and family together for birthdays and holidays,” Yegorova said. “This always fills us with happiness. We laugh for hours when we reminisce about the funny things we have done together in the past.”

This is a more family-oriented society than America’s. It is still not unusual for as many as four generations of Russians to live together.

For many Muscovites, their homes are oases where they escape the dog-eat-dog world of overcrowded public transportation, impersonal stores and inefficient services.

“When things are changing so rapidly around you, it is very important to have your own little kingdom, so that there is always something you can be absolutely sure of,” Olga Vyrodova, a 40-year-old accountant, said with a soft smile. “The simple joys of my family and home are what keep me going.”

The tidy one-bedroom apartment shared by Olga, her husband and their two children exudes warmth and order. The family is constantly involved in some kind of do-it-yourself project to make their home a little cozier.

And while some people take refuge at home, others like to flee their cramped quarters in search of outdoor fun.

On winter weekends, whole families can be found cross-country skiing in the forests outside Moscow. Shrieks of glee are often heard from young children, attached by rope to parents and pulled around on mini-skis. Almost every proper sledding hill is covered with people belly-laughing as they hurl themselves down the slope on sleds, scraps of cardboard or plastic.

“My husband is away from home a lot on business, so when he’s in town, we try to have fun with the children,” Lena Nurilamov said after roaring down a hill with her husband and two children. “It’s not true what they say about Russians never smiling--Russians smile more than anyone else,” she added.

But finding happy faces in Moscow takes more persistence than it does in Los Angeles or other American cities, where smiling is a part of the culture and salesclerks and waiters smile on cue.

Even in places where smiles might be expected, there seem to be mostly stony faces instead. At the skating rink in Moscow’s famous Gorky Park, teen-agers with and without skates take to the ice in the evenings as a disc jockey plays Russian and foreign rock hits. Everyone seems to be having fun, but smiles are rare.

“It’s not a factor of our gray lives but of tradition,” said Lena M. Vrono, a Russian psychiatrist. “Russians have never smiled much. It’s a national trait not to smile in public.”

Viewed as a crowd--at a movie theater, on the subway or in the streets--Russians do look more dismal now than they did before then-Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev launched the reform programs that turned their lives inside out. But one of the reasons for this is that people’s lives have grown so much more complicated, Vrono said.

“I would not say that people enjoy themselves less now,” she said. “It is just that it has started to cost a lot more.”

Russians, who delight in doting on their children, find it increasingly difficult to entertain their kids as prices for everything from toys to televisions have skyrocketed. But tickets for children’s theater and movies are still affordable, so almost every performance is sold out.

In the lobby of Moscow’s best puppet theater, Roman Stelmakh, 4, alternately meowed and giggled as his mother dressed him in red boots and a blue snowsuit. “Puss in Boots” was the show of the day, and little Roman had enjoyed it so much that he was pretending to be the main character.

His mother, Galina, and the other parents and grandparents at the Sunday afternoon performance said they were glad to give the children a chance to smile, laugh and forget the everyday difficulties that affect even the tiniest Russians.

“He loves the puppet theater, and it’s one of the few things we can still afford,” said Galina Stelmakh, a nuclear engineer. “The circus has become really expensive. They have to feed the bears, and you know how much food prices have gone up. Thank goodness they don’t have to feed the puppets.”