# In 2004, a Finnish army camp in Kosovo had fifteen saunas. One had a steering wheel.

- Series: [Saunantakaa](https://miu.fm/saunantakaa.md)
- Published: 2026-10-10
- Page: https://miu.fm/saunantakaa/in-2004-a-finnish-army-camp-in-kosovo-had-fifteen-saunas-one

## Story

In 2004, a Finnish army camp in Kosovo had fifteen saunas. One had a steering wheel.

Camp Ville, at Lipljan, was the Finnish peacekeepers' base in KFOR. When time allowed, the saunas were heated every morning and every evening. When the Finns moved in they had found three abandoned army cars on the site of an old paper factory: Zastavas, signals vehicles of the old Yugoslav army. Car lovers among the soldiers restored one. The spare parts stayed in a storage hall.

Then Staff Sergeant Jari Jokinen saw them and, as NATO's KFOR Chronicle put it, came to the conclusion "which any Finn would ultimately have ended up with: let's build a sauna!" The engineer platoon turned the parts into a mobile sauna with wooden inner walls and a wood-heated stove, and called it Zaunava: Zastava plus sauna. It became the number one attraction for visitors to the camp.

How do you bathe in a car? Jokinen: "Normal procedure is to run four rounds around the camp. Four men can conveniently fit inside and the heat is gentle and moist."

Would you take the fourth seat?

Source: "When ZASTAVA Became ZAUNAVA", SRLT Markku Tuhkanen, Finnish Army, KFOR Chronicle (NATO), 11.8.2004. The drawing is not of an exact model: the article names only "old signals vehicles". It counts fifteen saunas at the camp in all; the film takes the sauna car as one of them.
Sounds: Freesound (CC0): kyles, felix.blume, LiezelDippenaar, spookymodem, haulaway, I.fekry, TRP, mcmikai, SukritSen, mohomran, supaluci, brunoboselli, njjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj, Aiyumi, tonalt; Mökkiperikunnalle sounds (CC0).

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