Шныри

In the баня, there is always a period of 5–10 minutes within a session when the парилка is closed so that it can be cleaned. In some places, people who work there do the in-session cleaning; in other places, I noticed that it’s always the same people (otherwise regular customers like me) who would clean the room.

So I asked some people there about it: why are they cleaning the room? Do they get a discount or something?

The answer was that they’re not getting any discounts and they do it because they want to do it. Someone said, with a rather disparaging expression, that they are шныри́ — and others laughed.

The most appropriate definition I found for the term was here: “Заключенный, взявший (иногда под давлением со стороны других заключенных) на себя обязанность убирать камеру, барак, производственное помещение, выполнять работу, которую заключенные обязаны делать по очереди.”

It looks like it could be derived from the standard verb шнырять: “торопливо, поспешно ходить взад и вперёд или в разных направлениях (обычно с целью узнать, разузнать, выяснить что-либо); рыскать.”