SERGIEV POSAD, Russia -- Peer pressure. That is the only explanation I have for why I leave my perch in a hot dry sauna to run through the frigid Russian countryside and jump in an icy well wearing only a bathing suit. Getting out, I roll in the snow, which feels warm by comparison, before hightailing it back inside.
Let me make it clear that I am not a winter person. Nor do I practice extreme sports, or extreme anything other than sloth as I slather myself with sunscreen in 85-degree temperatures at the beach. I would like to blame my sprint on a vodka-induced euphoria, but that would be inaccurate as well. It's the power of the group that leads me to this experience. If the 10-year-old next to me can do this, then I can, too.
It's as close to lunacy as I ever hope to get -- and it's exhilarating.
The sauna, the well, the snow are part of an excursion to a banya in Sergiev Posad, the premier town of the Golden Ring and the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church.
I could have stayed in Moscow and returned to the Sandunoff Bath-House, located in a fraying but elegant 18th-century building with marble and ebony interiors, and painted ceilings. The Sandunoff is an all-service spa with steam rooms, cold baths, massages, manicures, pedicures, Russian cuisine, vodka, and beer. One afternoon in the steam room there, with intermittent cold baths and a massage, turned my hardened travel muscles to mush.
But my city banya only lasted a few hours. I have been promised a daylong encounter, an uber-banya of sorts. So I have journeyed with my niece and her friends to Sergiev Posad, an hour north of Moscow, where Svetlana and Yuri Kurilkin open their home on weekends for small groups to enjoy what they call a ''Russian experience."
The custom of going to a banya can be traced to medieval times. Most Russian villages had communal bathhouses where men and women would steam themselves, beat each other with branches, and roll in the snow to cleanse the body as well as the soul, and to drive out illness. Every banya also had its own mischievous resident spirit called a bannick (after Bannick, the Slavic god of bathing), often described as an old man with hairy paws and long nails. Late in the day an offering of twigs, soap, and lye was left for the bannick, who liked to bathe alone or, it was said, with the devil.
Arriving at the Kurilkins' in the late morning, it's easy to imagine that bannicks are real as I gaze at the Trinity Monastery's five-domed Assumption Cathedral (started in 1552) on the opposite hill. Founded by the monk Sergius in 1340, this walled complex of decoratively painted buildings has been a spiritual center in Russia for more than 600 years, and today is a working monastery, seminary, theological academy, and place of pilgrimage. On this bleak winter day, its bright blue and gold onion domes provide welcome flashes of color against the cottony sky.
Inside, Sveta and her mother greet us with steaming piles of warm blinis served with jam and sweet tea.
The room has the feel of an old hunting lodge or cabin. At one end of the long table, a decorative carving of Saint George slaying a dragon hangs on the slatted pine walls. But we don't linger long because it's time to put our layers back on and head outside.
Our adventure will start with horse-drawn sleighs, or ''troikas," at the edge of the nearby woods. To get there, we pile into a van driven by the Kurilkins' son, Roma.
Scattered farmhouses give way to open fields. The ground is white, the sky is white, and dark green pines stain the horizon. It isn't snowing but snow seems imminent. We turn off the main road, round a bend, and voila! As in a fairy tale, gaily-painted troikas wait to spirit us through the woods.
In the open sleds we cover our legs with blankets, and jostle along a narrow trail watching for low-hanging branches that could tip their snowy load upon our heads. The only sounds we hear are the horses' hooves and the shushing of the runners as they skim along the path.
We arrive at a clearing where it is as if we have stumbled upon an impromptu party hosted by forest gnomes: A fire burns in an open pit, ringed by plastic chairs draped in an odd assortment of woolen cloths. A pine tree festooned with glittery garlands and tinsel rises behind a makeshift table resting on upright logs. Sonya, a white dog with black spots and a jaunty camouflage coat, sits in one of the chairs.
Presiding over this scene, like the king of the gnomes, is Yuri. He welcomes us with open arms and a bright smile. He speaks no English, but his eyes speak the universal language of a playful 10-year-old.
Yuri presses beverages into our hands (our choices are sparkling wine, vodka, and water) along with carefully sharpened sticks for skewering hotdogs to grill for lunch.
Jenny O'Connor, my niece, estimates that in the three years she has been living in Moscow, this is her seventh trip to the Sergiev Posad banya. After all these visits, she is wise to Yuri's pranks and advises me to not let him out of my sight -- unless I want to be pushed into the snow.
After more troika rides and downhill sledding on plastic coasters, we head back to the house where the actual banya begins. We change into bathing suits, smear our faces with granular honey, and work up a sweat in the dry Finnish sauna. Yuri beckons us, two at a time, to enter the Russian sauna, where water splashed on hot rocks intensifies the heat and adds moisture to the air. Between these rooms is an ice-cold pool. Forgetting my niece's warning, I turn my back on Yuri and fall in with a splash.
Yuri howls with laughter as I yelp and leap from the frigid water. He's even more gleeful as he wields leafy birch branches dipped in eucalyptus oil and slaps my back and legs in the steamy room. The experience is unexpectedly relaxing. But instead of melting into a pool of mushy bliss, I succumb to group pressure to run outside, plunge into the well, and roll in the snow.
Later, showered and dressed, we sit pink-cheeked on benches before a lavish feast that Sveta and her mother have prepared.
Our first course is hot hearty borscht served in hand-painted wood bowls. We dig into platters of fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, cheese, oranges, smoked salmon canapes, bowls of sour cream, and piles of blini with jam, eating as if we haven't seen food for days. Sveta emerges from the kitchen with beef stew and pelmeni, meat-stuffed dumplings, and we gobble them down as well.
Sveta circles the table, pouring vodka into small crystal glasses. She then slips an embroidered garment over each of our heads until we're all bedecked in peasant frocks and are flush with food and spirits.
We offer traditional Russian toasts in this preordained order: to friendship, world peace, and beautiful women. The rest we improvise.
Soon we are on our feet dancing to Russian folk songs, then embarrassing ourselves singing outdated American karaoke tunes. Dusk arrives, and before we are ready the van arrives to take our limp and sated selves back to Moscow.
Would this beach lover and snow hater do it all again? You bet. I could use another cleansing of the body and soul. And this time I'll leave an offering for the bannick.
Contact Necee Regis, a freelance writer in Boston, at neceeregis@yahoo.com. 
