Supraśl

Supraśl

Supraśl is the pearl of the Knyszyn Primeval Forest, a borderland of many cultures, nationalities and religions. One can find here secluded wooden villages with wooden churches, Orthodox churches and chapels hanging on centuries-old pines. The greatest wealth of the area is its people: Poles, Belarusians, Russians, Tartars, descendants of Jews and Germans, followers of Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Judaism and Protestantism.

Tourists come here in large numbers, attracted by the excellent tourist facilities, the cultural landscape and historical monuments as well as the rich flora and fauna of the Knyszyn Forest and the exceptionally charming valley of the Supraśl River. Together with its tributaries, the river forms a peninsula with a hill on which the Male Monastery of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is situated. Legend has it that the monks from nearby Gródek, after praying for several days, "let go" of a wooden cross down the Supraśl river, asking it to stop at a place that would be best suited to the location of their new monastery.

Supral 1

A basin of monuments

But Suprasl is not only a beautiful Monastery. There are also numerous monuments: the Buchholtz Palace (now the High School of Fine Arts) with its buildings: stables, coach house, gatehouse and preserved fragments of an Art Nouveau park - one of the few in this part of Poland, the Gardener's House, also known as the Old Post Office, the Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity, the neo-Gothic Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary Queen of Poland, the Town Hall, the former seat of a girls' school where Polish was taught secretly during the Partitions of Poland, and the unique example of wooden modernism - the People's House. While strolling along the streets of Suprasl, it is also worth visiting Klein’s house, the current seat of the Suprasl Centre for Culture and Recreation, which in the 19th century served as a house for the administrator of the Buchholz textile factory, and the seat of the Witold Sławiński Landscape Park of the Knyszyńska Forest - the former White Manor House - built in 1822 by the last Uniate hierarch of Suprasl, Bishop Leon Ludwik Jaworowski.

Along 3-go Maja Street stand the aged wooden "Weavers' Houses". It is hard to believe that in the 19th century, the town was a thriving centre of the textile industry. After the November Uprising, as a result of the shifting of the customs border, several textile companies were relocated to Suprasl from Zgierz and Lodz, whose owners included: Adolf Buchholtz, Wilhelm Friedrich Zachert and factory owners from the Alt, Aunert and Jansen families. It was thanks to the construction of these textile factories that the image of industrial Suprasl was shaped, from which the town's urban layout, park and garden layouts, temples of various denominations and numerous dwellings of factory owners and workers, such as Buchholtz Palace and Weavers' Houses, have remained intact to the present day.

Unique microclimate

Supraśl is one of Poland's youngest health resorts. Spa and holiday traditions date back to the interwar period when the Golden Cross Sanatorium for tuberculosis sufferers was built in 1924 and maintained by the Association of State Officials. The balmy air proved to have a salutary effect on lung patients and those convalescing from heart attacks. Distinct spa protection zones enable both the development and operation of spa treatment functions as well as the emergence of tourist services while the main value determining the, development of spa tourism is nature.

The village has its own "black gold". It is a deposit of peloid with extraordinary healing properties. This is why Supraśl has boasted the status of a lowland, climatic, peloid spa since 2002. The uniqueness of the Supraśl health resort lies in the "full use" of the forest for therapeutic and recreational purposes. The location on a forest glade surrounded on all sides by pine forests, through which the riverbed Supraśl winds, gives unique opportunities for the development of a base for shaping the attractiveness of the landscape.

The geographic location of Suprasl, in particular its spa zones, in conditions shaped by the lowland climate, make this health resort suitable for the directions of climatotherapy in terms of heliotherapy, aerotherapy and kinesiotherapy. Based on the documented curative properties of natural raw materials and the curative properties of the climate, the Minister of Health has established the following treatment directions for the Supraśl health resort: diseases of the upper and lower respiratory tract, cardiological diseases, orthopaedic-traumatic diseases, rheumatological diseases.

In Supraśl there is one sanatorium and three spa hotels of 3 * standard. There is also a Pilgrim's House and a hostel in the District Sports and Recreation Centre "Bukowisko". Visitors can enjoy the numerous exercise paths located in the Forest Spa Park and the beautiful riverside promenade with kinesiotherapy equipment.

The statistical portrait of the municipality

Visit the website of the city

Contact

Office of the Board of the Association of Bialystok Functional Area

ul. Mickiewicza 74 lok. 6 
15-427 Białystok
tel./fax  85 661 15 38