Hammams in Istanbul The hammam or turkish bath is a type of bath in which the bather sweats freely in a room heated by a continuous flow of hot dry air. There was a time when enjoying a turkish bath was not a privilege for the rich. On the opposite, people went to the public baths because owing a house with its own bath was a rare luxury. That was the time when people crowded the hammams not just to bath, but also to talk business or gossip, to have fun or spend the day and socialize. This portfolio takes an insight look in the first hammam ever built in Istanbul, an establishment that dates since 1841. Nowdays, out of 230 turkish baths, only 60 are still open. In this sequence of pictures, the bathers get prepared for a rough day of work (from 6 in the morning to 10 in the evening) by offering themselves what their customers will later enjoy: The full service of a hammam: a full body wash (sometimes preceded by a cold plunge), followed by a massage, and finally by a period of relaxation in a cooling-room.