Networking Naked With Finland's Diplomatic Sauna Society
One recent evening, I went to a foreign embassy and got naked with about 20 strangers—mostly Hill staffers, journalists, and a few Finnish people. This was a formal, and very exclusive, event held by the Diplomatic Sauna Society, a Scandinavian-flavored networking club established by a spokesman of the Finnish embassy in D.C. to help the country’s diplomats forge connections with Washington heavyweights. As the founder, Kari Mokko, explained to a Washington Post reporter in 2010, “We needed something to catch attention.”
Saunas feature in all Finnish embassies, according to Sanna Kangasharju, a diplomat who now runs the society. But she told me via email that many are mainly for the use of embassy staff and can’t accommodate events. Still, she said, “Inviting guests to the sauna is an old Finnish way of
