Ivan Petrovich has been to the banya [Russian bath house] every weekend for more than 46 years.

It all started when Petrovich, an out-of-work metallurgist born in Kirov, was just five years old. “One Saturday afternoon the old man said to me, ‘Son, get to sleep early tonight, because we’re going to the banya first thing tomorrow morning,’” Petrovich recalls. “I was excited, of course. I had long wondered what the banya was al about, and now I was about to find out.”

The next morning, Petrovich experienced a fairytale-like scene beyond his wildest imagination: grown men sitting around naked in steamy saunas, tossing back vodka shots with pickled cucumber zakuski, whipping one another with birch branches before leaping into pools of icy-cold water—and then the whole process starting over again from the beginning.

“I was too young to partake in the vodka-drinking yet, but with that one glimpse I was definitely hooked.”

Now, some 47 years later, the 52-year-old Petrovich has been to the banya an estimated 2,405 consecutive Sundays (“Never on Saturday, and never during the week,” he notes solemnly, “one bath a week is enough for any man”), a streak that he did not even break during his traumatic move to the capital in 1969 or during the 1980 Olympics.

“When I first came to Moscow, some acquaintances from Kirov invited me to some of the more famous bath houses—Sandunovskiye, Krasnopresnenskiye,” he notes. “But those were too uppity for my tastes.”

It wasn’t until he learned of the nearby Vorontsovskiye Bani that Petrovich finally felt at home with the Moscow banya scene. “It’s just a 5-minute walk from my home, and the staff don’t seem to mind when I walk butt-naked to the snack bar for one more bottle of vodka. In many ways, it’s just like the good old banya back home in Kirov.”

Even some of Petrovich’s closest friends marvel at his dedication. “I’ll miss a Sunday here and there when I’m just too hung over to go, but not Vanya,” says Igor Strelnikov. “Sometimes we jokingly refer to him as ‘Mr. Clean.’”

But Petrovich takes his friends’ ribbing in stride, pointing to his strict banya regimen as the secret behind his uncharacteristic longevity.

“Proletarskaya isn’t the most ekologichesky chisty region in the city, of course. I’ve seen so many good men succumb over the years to liver ailments and other diseases, but here I am at the ripe old age of 52.”

God—and banya—willing, he should still be around for another five or so.