“There are a lot of people trying to get a ticket, and it’s very popular,” said Robbie Gramer, 33, who writes about diplomacy and national security for Foreign policy magazine. After he wrote about his experience, “I got a flood of people from the State Department, the Pentagon, congressional staff, other reporters all asking me how I got in and, ‘Can you put in a good word for me?'”

Hautala said: “I get requests from members of Congress to come to the sauna.” The embassy estimates that several requests come in per week.

In Washington, there are two types of Diplomatic Sauna Society events. (Similar setups exist at Finnish embassies around the world, including Berlin and London.) In the first, the Finnish delegation gathers a group of 15 to 20 people at the embassy about once a month. The evening begins in a dark downstairs bar, lit by a neon sign that reads “Sauna.” Attendees are separated by gender, and each group is ushered into a fitting room stocked with Marimekko gowns and Lumene bath products.

Participants strip down—nudity is encouraged, but swimwear is allowed—and then go through the sauna ritual: shower, heat, cold, repeat. After a few rounds, everyone changes and heads back to the bar. Drinks and traditional Finnish snacks are served, including meatballs and salmon on rye bread with dill sauce.

The ambassador also hosts weekly sauna diplomacy sessions at his private residence. His sauna is smaller (it holds about 10 people) and is outdoors, with a pool for cooling off.

All participants receive a diploma stating: “Membership in the association is awarded only to individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary sisu (perseverance) by conversing effortlessly and eloquently in the 82 degree Celsius heat of the embassy’s diplomatic sauna.”

“I put a picture of me on Twitter. It was an honor,” said Marie Royce, who served as assistant secretary of state in the Trump administration.

Gramer, the journalist, said the sauna gatherings were a welcome change from other events in the capital.

“Embassies in DC always have different events, and often they’re austere and pretty boring,” he said. “The sauna is different. It’s much warmer. It’s much more welcoming.”

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Ben Cantrell, chief of staff to Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, said he appreciates the opportunity to network and do something healthy at the same time.

“I’m not one to shy away from a tough meeting on the tennis court or the golf course, and this felt more like an addition to that,” he said.

He didn’t even mind spending six hours of his Friday evening on it.

Walter Landgraf, a senior fellow at the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, said he would cherish an invitation to the sauna.

“I think the atmosphere, the ritual of going to the sauna and sharing that experience with another person fosters an openness, and it makes people let their guard down,” Landgraf said. “It’s also private. You’re behind closed doors; people are more willing to talk.”

Hautala said one of the most valuable parts of sauna meetings is that they last significantly longer than regular business meetings: “I won’t name names, but I spent five, six hours with the editor of a major national media company, and that doesn’t happen.”

It is also an advantage that there is now a special interest in Finland, now that the country is a member of NATO, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“If you want to understand how Putin’s power centers work, and you can’t talk to the Russians, which is often not possible, then the Finns are the next stop,” Gramer said. (Finland has a border with Russia that is about 800 miles long.)

Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said it is also in Finland’s interest to maintain close relations in the United States.

“People who go to a sauna will have an unforgettable experience and they will remember the Finns who hosted them. And the next time the Finns ask for a meeting, they will get it,” he said.

Gramer agreed that the setup was a win-win: “I never thought I’d say this, but networking naked is just better.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.