Moscow’s winter outdoor pools are a very charming sight: the snow-covered platform and a pair of poles with flashing coloured swimming caps. There are four public outdoor pools in central Moscow and I’ve been always curious to know who those fearless people bathing in adverse weather conditions were.
Chaika, or Seagull, is situated just a few hundred metres away from my office and it is particularly known for its gloomy, dimly lit dressing rooms -they look like showers in movies about American prisons. But they are very stylishly connected to the public baths with special water channel: you simply jump into darkness and then emerge in the fresh air.
On the platform you can see people in warm coats who always walk along the open bath – these are the coaches. The pool itself is periodically fed with hot water which is mixing with cold and circulates throughout the space. Thanks to this artificial Gulf Stream, water temperature can floats around at 27 ° C. Steam over the water is warm too - about 15 ° C. Fancy a swim?