Since its founding in 1892, the Russian & Turkish Baths have introduced visitors to relaxation rituals and bathing traditions from Eastern Europe and Turkey. Co-ed crowds clad in bathing suits flush their bodies of toxins and their skin of sludge through time-honored Russian methods of cold-water plunges, brisk swats from oak-leaf bundles, and reading of brick-size novels. Spa professionals exfoliate skin with applications of Dead Sea Salt or Turkish soap scrubs, while bathers relax from invigorating treatments in the Finnish sauna or the bubbling waterfall Jacuzzi. After guests get clean and fully refreshed, they satisfy appetites at the attached Russian cafe with meals of borscht, smoked salmon, and blintzes.