It’s February 2025. In a little square in a park, a rusty fountain seeps its water peacefully. Even though it’s winter, and most fountains are switched off for the season, this one does not stop.Despite the cold, people gather here; some sit on the white benches, which form a neat circle around the fountain. Others stop by to touch the water, to take a picture, or to just stand still and breathe deep for a while. The warming sun rays are cast on the strangers’ faces, as the water drips into the basin. Hundreds of droplets perform a hypnotising and calming concerto.“Don’t touch it! It’s all dirty, red, and rusty!!”, a loud voice pierces the silence.“Whoa, aunt, smell this!!!!!!”, shouts a child.“It’s an infinite source of water!”, shouts another child filled with wonder.And I do wonder in fact, where does this water come from, why does it smell, and will it keep coming forever?One month passes. I feel the fountain calling me again; I want to see what’s new. I jump on a train and 20 minutes later I’m there. It’s warm in the sun, but I sit in the shade. This time I want to draw the scene from a different angle. The conversations around the fountain oscillate between getting dirty and getting wet. It’s the weekend, and the morning fountain clientele consists of protective parents and their over-enthusiastic children. I draw for two hours, not realising that hypothermia is about to kick in.And then, the heatwave comes. It’s April. We are nearing the Easter Holidays, and it’s unusually warm for this time of year. I bring my sketching friends Julia and Andi who are visiting from Berlin; I must show them the fountain. The trees now stand in pink bloom, and the fountain, as always, does its thing. But this time the place is totally packed. We are in Sopot, Poland – a coastal spa resort city situated in the north of the country, right by the Baltic Sea.The name Sopot comes from a Porto-Slavic word meaning “fast flowing stream”, or “spring”. A name adequate to a place such as this, where abundant freshwater springs and streams flow out of the surrounding moraine hills and exit into the sea.“Yeah, listen, I am sitting here by the mushroom”, says a lady on the phone. This fountain is colloquially known as the “inhalation mushroom”, and fair enough, judging by its shape it does indeed resemble one. It’s a perfect meeting spot, a resting place, an ice-cream break, and a tourist attraction. But what are these people inhaling? Every now and then comes a pair of tourists, who weave their own sorties and assumptions about the water in the fountain.“No, it’s not brine, it’s uhhhh…”, says one lady. “It’s gotta be something, cause look at how the varnish is all worn away”, replies a man.“Check if this water is cold or warm!”, suggests a parent to her child. “COLD!”, shouts the child with enthusiasm.The water’s temperature fluctuates throughout the year between 11 and 15 degrees Celsius, and the assumptions are true, this is no ordinary water. It is indeed brine. What smells here is the hydrogen sulphide, and what gives the fountain its rusty look is the iron oxide and iron hydroxide.In May it’s hot again. All the trees have turned green at last. Sunbathing, chatting, ice-cream eating, and fountain approbates continue. I think about how just a few months ago I was drawing in the near-hypothermia state. Now, sitting in the full-on sun, I sweat and wonder which option is worse, and which better. But then in June, it gets even hotter. A lazy atmosphere reigns around the fountain. People seek seats in the shade; more and more layers of clothing are removed; shoes are cast away. It’s TOO hot.Apart from these windows of hot weather here and there, the summer in the north of Poland is not the warmest this year. It rains a lot, and the unpleasant wind makes everything seem colder. In July it’s the first time I notice that the water in the fountain is up to its brim, it’s spilling over the edges and falling onto the ground. May this be from the large amount of rainfall? It’s starting to drizzle, everything is calm, various hushed conversations revolve around the fountain. A group of senior citizens enter the scene and sit down. They are led by a physiotherapist from the nearby Pomeranian Rheumatology Centre. “Four, three, two…”, they are doing ankle rotations. “Now raise your heels off the ground, alternately!”, directs the physiotherapist. “Hop, hop, hop, hop!”A woman uses her hat to fan the fountain brine fumes onto her face. She inhales, and then she tests the knowledge of her two kids. “Do you know what this water is called?” “Brine!”“And what spring does it come from?”, she asks.There is no answer, so she fills them in and says it comes from the Spring of St. Wojciech.But it’s not a natural spring; it’s a man-made well. This borehole was drilled 1173 metres deep into the ground in the early 70s as part of the National Geology Institute program to locate mineral water resources in various regions of Poland. Water trapped in loose sandstones was located at the depth of around 800 metres and tested positively for high mineralisation. But because there was nobody who could manage the well, the drill site was plugged, and the well waited for better days. Finally in the 90s, when Sopot was planning a new city development strategy, the topic of the well returned. I meet with Katarzyna Kucz-Chmielecka, who worked on this new strategy. She tells me that the plan was to get Sopot an official spa town status. For years, the city has seen the intensification of tourism, which is not easy on the locals, who complain at the misbehaving crowds flooding their streets and beaches. Statistically about 2 million tourists pass each year through this small city with a population of only 30 000. The plan would be to focus on the things the city has to offer as a resort. Promoting wellbeing became the main drive to attract sensible tourists, who would respect the place they are visiting, and who would come here not only in the main season, but throughout the year. But to become an official spa town, a whole list of parameters must be met, says Katarzyna. Some of these are: proof that the city has access to natural resources with medicinal properties (e.g. brine water), the natural environment must be free of noise, the air must be clean, etc., etc. The brine must be examined, and a certificate must be issued, confirming that the water has healing properties and is a so called “curative water”. The Sopot brine is a 4.3% bromide-iodide brine, containing large amounts of potassium, magnesium, and iodine, and therefore it qualifies as said curative water. To manage their natural resource, the city needs to hire a mining facility, where a mining geologist oversees the extraction of those resources. It is a strange concept – a mining facility here in the north, where the only bare rock you’ll ever see is an erratic boulder left here thousands of years ago by a passing glacier. So…a rock which is not even from here! When you say the words “mine”, or “miner” here in the north, everybody immediately thinks of the south, and their vast and abundant coal and salt mines. Year ’97 saw the official ceremony that cranked the pumps open, and in ’99 Sopot finally received an official status of a spa town. It occurred to me that what the public sees here in the Southern Park in Sopot is water coming out of a pretty fountain: it flows, it smells, it has a pleasant sound. Beneath it lie layers upon layers of sediment and rock, and a mountain of bureaucracy. At the end of August comes another short-term heatwave. My fountain-observation project is now in full swing. I feel so at ease here by the mushroom, and I’m always compelled to show this spot to anyone who visits. This time it’s another sketcher from Berlin, Detlef. “Drink, because it’s very important”, says a lady to a man, encouraging him to stay hydrated in this heat. They’re sitting in the shade. I take the lady’s advice by proxy and take a swig of my water. Just by sitting here, we are all collectively losing water and salts through our skin pores in the form of sweat. This is why in the summertime the advertisements for electrolyte tablets can be seen everywhere. They are trying to tell us to replenish not just water, but also important minerals in our bodies.The Sopot brine, even though full of good minerals, is not for drinking. In fact, the concentration of those minerals is so high, that the water doesn’t go bad, because no bacteria can survive in it. The pipes through which the brine flows from the well to the fountain must be made from special material (different thermoplastic polymers), as steel pipes would simply corrode. I learn from Katarzyna, that any medicinal drinking of any brine water should be done under a supervision of a doctor, and the brine should be diluted using correct proportions. However, research conducted on the Sopot brine confirmed that it is more than okay to pickle gherkins in it. And not just gherkins…it can be cabbage; it can be any vegetable that takes well to fermenting in salty water. This is good news for the Poles, who almost religiously perform the pickling of gherkins each summer. I spot a man filling a big plastic bottle in the fountain, and perhaps it is for that very purpose.Pickling season may be over now, and peak tourist season definitely is. It’s mid-September and maintenance work on the nearby playground occurs. A man drills bits of missing wood elements back into place. VRRRR VRRRRRRRRHHHRRHRRRVVVVRRR VVVVVVRRRRRRRRRRRHHHHHHVVVVIn any other circumstance, I’d be annoyed at the sound, but here, hypnotised by the presence of brine, I consider it as harmless background noise. And sure enough, by merely sitting here and inhaling what the fountain has to offer is enough to feel its relaxing effects. Apart from bringing the state of zen to the nervous system, it has antibacterial and purifying properties; it can alleviate asthma and allergies; it reduces rheumatic pain and inflammation and increases immunity. The Sopot brine grid stretches underground in a maze of pipes for about 2 kilometres. The water is fed into various swimming pools, jacuzzies, and bathtubs across the city (where it is diluted), as well as one other mushroom fountain. Bathing in this brine has its own benefits; it hydrates and softens the skin. It eases atopic dermatitis, increases the metabolic rate and blood circulation. It is used in rehabilitation treatments after injuries, as it improves mobility.“It’s not summer anymore!”, shouts a mother to her child, trying to prevent him from getting wet in the fountain. So, we are back to the classic off-season parent-child fountain conversations, I think to myself. It’s October; more and more dead leaves accumulate on the ground, and even though it is getting colder, people with the same enthusiasm still try to untangle the secrets of the fountain and its water. They could of course just read the information board that stands nearby.That said, I hadn’t read the information board. I wanted to get to know the fountain through what others say about it. Month after month I obtained a lot of information, some of which was wrong.“I’ll tell you something: salty water doesn’t freeze”, says a father to a daughter. This is not entirely true. It just takes a lower temperature, and this specific water needs a temperature of -3 or -4 degrees Celsius. The process of freezing separates the salt from the water; the water freezes, and the salt deposits itself on the top.I fact-checked all the assumptions spoken out around the fountain. The answers to my many questions were supplied by Michał Kamiński, the very mining geologist, who oversees the extraction of the Sopot brine from the Well of St. Wojciech. So, is this really an “infinite source of water”, as said by a kid back on February 8th? He tells me, no, but with the current extraction volume of around 2,5 m3/h, it should last for the next 200 000 years. I even find out that the level of water in the fountain changes not by some mysterious fluxes of underground flow, but because of a technical problem with the angle of the pipe connected to the fountain. How mundane!I meet Michał at the Well site. It doesn’t look like much: a small building with a pipe going out of it (this is where the valve is), which enters a slightly bigger building (full of pipes, tanks, and de-sanding devices). Due to the high pressure in the depths, the water flows out of the hole on its own without the use of pumps. I find out that this water is a so called “relic” seawater that was trapped between the subsequent sediment layers. It’s around six times saltier than the water in the Baltic Sea. It’s been brewing there for many years and gained its specific mineral structure thanks to the rocks around it. Judging by the age of those rocks, the water could be around 250 million years old.In sub-zero temperatures towards the end of November nobody shows interest in sitting on a bench, and even I lose patience after only one hour of drawing. Hypothermia gets hold of me once again. The tourist season is over; the gherkin pickling season is over; the comfortable drawing season is over too. Today even dogs wear coats.In mid-December, weirdly, it gets warmer, and further away from resembling winter. But the festive season of Christmas is strong. It speaks through the fake reindeer antlers on a dog, or the decorative Christmas Tree bags. There aren’t many people here today, and because of that birds feel a bit braver to fly off their trees in search for food and water. The atmosphere, as always, is contemplative. Each time I step into Sopot, whether it’s crowded with tourists, or not, I can’t help but feel a certain level of calm. I criss-cross the city’s small streets, passing beautiful old villas with their protruding colourful wooden verandas. I see curious art installations, art galleries, and theatres; I hear piano music playing in a house above a gorge. I stroll through the plentiful parks and paths in the nearby forest; I walk down the pier, and stare into the infinity of a horizon. While Sopot grew from settlement, to fishing village, to town, more and more people started to recognise its pleasant surroundings and atmosphere. In the 16th century, the rich from the nearby city of Gdańsk began to set up their summer residencies here. And although at the beginning of the 19th century, bathing in the sea was still considered here as unhealthy and immoral, the common opinion altered during the Napoleonic Campaigns. One of the most important figures who had his say in the matter was Jean Georg Haffner, a Doctor of Medicine, who decided to remain in the region, and in 1823 opened a professionally run bathhouse here. The trend caught on, and more and more facilities were built. The focus was on the benefits of sea air and seawater, bathing in which was prescribed for conditions such as neurosis. At the beginning specific rules applied for bathing; women and men could not go into the same part of the sea, or the beach. Many guests, instead of plunging into the sea, would take their treatment in bathtubs filled with seawater. Bathing in the sea was deemed as most pleasant from the middle of June to the end of August.In January, winter finally arrives, unsuspectedly. By the middle of the month, there’s so much snow that one can barely move around. It’s the snowiest winter we’ve had in years. The seating area around the fountain is a white desert. But the water still flows, and smells, and it will continue, as we now know, for many more years, unless somebody decides to put a plug on it. My one-year cycle is complete, and as I sit here, amongst mounds of snow that stifle all the sounds, I feel warm, and calm, and at home. This experiment (or ritual) of repetition let me observe not only the similarities and differences in what transpires here each month, but it had permanently tied a piece of me to this place.Just like many other cities in Poland, the history of Sopot’s inhabitants has ebbed and flowed with the comings and goings of wars, partitions, and regimes. It still does until this day, through gentrification caused by tourism. But without a doubt one thing that stays constant here is the feeling that there’s something significant in this place, a certain calmness that must not be overlooked. So, if you’re ever in Sopot, come sit by the mushroom for a while, maybe you’ll feel it too (and don’t forget to breathe).THANKS:I would like to thank Katarzyna Kucz-Chmielecka and Michał Kamiński, who shared their deep knowledge about the subject, and without whom this article would not have been possible. Thank you to Phil Wolstenholme for proof-reading, and to Urban Sketchers International for giving me the opportunity to share this story with the world!BIBLIOGRAPHY:https://www.aqua-sopot.com.pl/solanka/rys-historycznyhttps://www.pgi.gov.pl/en/mineral-resources/rock-raw-materials-and-others/14079-brines-curative-and-thermal-water.htmlhttps://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historia_SopotuSopot i jego historia od pradziejów do XIX wieku.https://histmag.org/Historia-Sopotu-Czesc-I-od-sredniowiecza-do-wybuchu-I-wojny-swiatowej-2528https://esopot.pl/pl/901_opinie/40109_sopot-miastem-duchow-czy-oaza-spokoju-spor-o-turystyke-i-przyszlosc-kurortu.htmlhttps://esopot.pl/pl/11_wiadomosci/34991_ile-sopotu-jest-w-sopocie-turystyka-kontra-lokalna-tozsamosc-dyskusja-.htmlhttps://www.trojmiasto.pl/historia/Historia-grodziska-w-Sopocie-n104264.htmlhttp://www.dawnysopot.pl/?content=opracowania&akcja=pokaz&id=6The post A year in the life of a fountain by Dominika Wróblewska appeared first on Urban Sketchers.