A Hearty Yeltsin Trades Swats With Cardiologist

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, whose death was thought imminent last fall, demonstrated that he is the picture of health by taking his doctor for a traditional Russian steam bath.

Renat Akchurin, the surgeon who operated on Yeltsin in November, joined the president in the banya, where they enjoyed the intense heat and swatted each other with freshly cut birch branches to stimulate the flow of blood.

“To show him that my heart runs like a clock, I took him to a banya,” the president recounted Wednesday. “I gave him a real good beating. Then he did the same to me, and we did this several times. His heartbeat was faster than mine.”

Yeltsin, on vacation in the town of Volzhsky Utyos in central Russia, said the doctor was satisfied with the recovery of the presidential heart eight months after quintuple bypass surgery.

“I feel good,” Yeltsin told reporters.

The banya is a centuries-old tradition in Russia. It is similar to a sauna except that water is poured on hot rocks to create steam.

After sitting in the heat, bathers take turns lying down on a wooden table where they are whipped with a venik, a bundle of small birch branches tied together like a broom. Then they immerse themselves in cold water, take a cold shower or roll in the snow. Russians consider the ritual healthful and relaxing.

Earlier in his vacation, Yeltsin was joined by Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari and took him to the banya too. Afterward, Yeltsin demonstrated for television cameras how he vigorously beat the Finnish leader.

“A Russian switch of green birch twigs on the Finnish president--that’s good!” Yeltsin said, beaming.

The experience must have had some beneficial effect: Later the two agreed to collaborate on ways of opening their common border.