20 Euros Historical Preservation Area of Kosice

Košice held the designation of European Capital of Culture in 2013, shared with Marseille, and this issue was timed to that occasion. The historic core of the city — one of the best-preserved medieval urban complexes in Central Europe — received UNESCO-level attention largely because it survived both World War II and subsequent Soviet-era redevelopment with its street plan and Gothic architecture largely intact, an outcome that owed as much to bureaucratic neglect as to deliberate conservation.