The Chernivtsi Sanitary Commission recorded its impressions in its report after inspecting the facilities in March 1864: “From the entrance hall, where tickets are collected, there are spacious, bright changing rooms on the right and left, connected by a hall [...]”. There were 16 changing rooms in all, from which “two high openings in the floor, without doors, lead directly to the front rooms, where the copper steam apparatus [...] is positioned in the form of a large tea samovar with several safety valves [...]. The water, crystal clear, fresh and refreshing, comes from a double work (a well with two pumps driven by a crank) in the courtyard near the entrance and is led through underground copper pipes both into the steam apparatus and into the pipes for the showers and ablutions of each sweat room” (Bukowina, 8 March 1864, p. 3). The bath, which for several years was referred to in the press only as the “Steam Bath in the Russische Gasse”, was later given the name “Sophienbad”.
After the First World War, the Sophienbad was closed for several years and reopened on 19 August 1924 at Strada Româna 40 (formerly Russische Gasse 40) “after thorough renovation, replacement of all machinery, installation of a large boiler and construction of a new well with a sufficient water supply” (Ostjüdische Zeitung, 17 August 1924, p. 4). As in the Habsburg era, the leaseholder remained Leiser Kalichstein, who had also leased the ritual Kaiserbad (later Marienbad).
Text: Markus Winkler
