It's "spasibo" - unstressed "o"s are pronounced like short "a"s in Russian.

This is nothing new for the Russkies. In Russian saunas they beat you for minutes at at time with a 2 cm thick birch branch (with the leaves still on) that has soaked in hot water. Does you no end of good. (And yes, I do speak from experience). However, the only run-ins I had with the KGB were not in saunas, more's the pity.

Spelling fixed. I got it off what looked like some kind of Russian mail-order bride site that had a glossary of handy-dandy phrases such as "Did you get the green card application?" and "Swedish vodka blows."

Russian Mail Order Bride Site - ha ha. Does the Mrs. know you surf there? Speaking of odd vocabulary, I have a Russian / Japanese phrase book that was published by the Soviet Ministry of Defenese in the 50s, full of useful phrases like "We won't kill you if you talk".