Scenes from the Bathhouse by Mikhail Zoshchenko. Short summary

5 seconds

People visit a bathhouse to bathe. It’s elementary. But sometimes a trip for cleanliness turns into a ridiculous adventure. The hero of the story gets into an anecdotal situation in a public bathhouse.

1 minute

The American bathhouses are fine, but one can also wash oneself in the Soviet ones. This is the reasoning of a certain citizen on a trip to get clean.

A public bath and laundry establishment begins with a coat rack. The visitor is given a coat and two license plates in exchange, one for his coat and the other for his other items of clothing. There is no place to keep the license plates for a completely naked person. It remains to tie them to his leg.

The «numbered» client enters the washing room. There’s no room to spare — there’s a big wash going on. Looking around, the citizen notices that there aren’t any free pats either. He has to secretly expropriate a bathing item from the soapy man.

After washing, the citizen tries to get his things back. They give him someone else’s pants and do not want to give him his coat at all, since the number has been lost.