History
For ages Sopot was a small fishing village. It was at the beginning of the XIX century that the place saw decisive changes, the author of which was Jan Jerzy Haffner from Alsace. He is said to be the one who started the construction of the modern bathing resort as well as the first wooden platform running into the water which was the forerunner of the famous pier “Molo” and the remaining part of the bathing infrastructure. In the XIX century the first Kurhaus , a horse racecourse and a tennis court were opened. In 1901 Sopot was granted civic rights.After the I st World War Sopot was incorporated into the Free City Gdańsk as a fashionable health resort base of the town. In 1927 a hotel (today’s “Grand Hotel”) affiliated with the casino was opened and in 1928 the pier was also expanded to the length of 512 metres which made it the longest wooden pier in Europe. At the time Sopot had enjoyed an established reputation in Poland and Europe – 30 000 tourists visited the place during the season.
Since 1945 Sopot has experienced a genuine cultural and academic promotion – theatres, music and other high schools art colleges and the well-known art gallery BWA. It is quite natural that many cultural events started to happen in the town e.g. Fine Art Festival, Jazz Festival, Song Festival. Sopot has also become the town associated with sport so there are many sports clubs such as tennis, sailing, athletics and riding ones as well as European-class basketball team Asseco Prokom Sopot (formerly Prokom Trefl). After prolonged efforts and after the opening of St. Wojciech Spring in 1999 Sopot gained Health Resort Status . The municipal local authorities do their best to make the town friendly both to residents as well as to visitors.