With participants from 24 countries involved, this weekend's Sauna Marathon in Otepää is not just an Estonian event but a European one. "They are not all from European countries, but there are a lot from European countries. There are a lot of different nationalities," said organizer Ago Arro.

This weekend's event will include over 800 participants, with around half having come to Estonia primarily to compete in the sauna marathon, according to Arro. "Their goal is to get through these saunas quickly, to be the best at the orienteering. Then there is the other half, who just enjoy the saunas. The foreigners, who visit the saunas with the locals, also study the local culture and traditions," he said.

To stand a chance of winning the competition, each team of four has to spend at least three minutes in each sauna. A fifth team member can be a driver. Over the course of the day, successful teams will have to cover between 150 and 200 kilometers to make it to all the saunas. The winner is the team that visits all 21 in the fastest time.

"The scope of the marathon is wide. This year we already held our sister marathon in Switzerland, then in Lithuania, and we are in talks with the Austrians. We have infected Europe with the sauna bug," Arro said on ETV show "Terevisioon."

"The scope of the marathon is wide. This year we already held our sister marathon in Switzerland, then in Lithuania, and we are in talks with the Austrians. We have infected Europe with the sauna bug," Arro said on ETV show "Terevisioon."

Arro has visited the Swiss sauna marathon twice, where he discovered that Estonian sauna culture is quite different from that in Switzerland.

"We have visited their marathon twice and talked to the locals and organizers. That's one of the reasons why they organize the marathon, because in Switzerland there's a still a kind of German sauna culture, where you sit down on a bench and if you talk to your friend for a while, the guy next to you asks you to be quiet," Arro explained.

"So maybe in Switzerland you don't talk in the sauna, you are quiet and on your own. But they liked the style they saw at our sauna marathon, where going to the sauna can be fun, people chat and all that goes with that."

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