Bathing in the Queer City

Ten of St. Petersburg’s sixty commercial bathhouses were completely or partially sealed by the authorities in the summer of 1887. Where the closures were partial, the so-called nomernaia bania, or family sections, which offered private bathing spaces by the hour, were shut and sealed. The closures took place on the authority of the previously discussed emergency legislation—specifically, the Security Law of 1881. The relevant injunctions note breaches of sanitary norms but as grounds for closure prioritize the allegation that operators had acquiesced to activities that had turned their baths into “dens of debauchery.”¹ One of the bathhouse operators, a