  We address one-dimensional soliton formation in the cubic nonlinear medium
with two-photon absorption and transversally inhomogeneous gain landscape
consisting of a single or several amplifying channels. Existence of the
solitons requires certain threshold gain while the properties of solitons
strongly depend on whether the number of the amplifying channels is odd or
even. In the former case an increase of the gain leads to a symmetry breaking,
which occurs through the pitchfork bifurcation, and to emergence of a single or
several co-existing stable asymmetric modes. In the case of even number of
amplifying channels we have found only asymmetric stable states.
