20 Zlotys Presidential Plane Crash in Smolensk

Issued to commemorate the April 2010 Tu-154 crash near Smolensk, Russia, which killed Polish President Lech Kaczyński, his wife Maria, and 94 others — among them the chief of the general staff, the president of the National Bank of Poland, and much of the senior military and civilian leadership traveling to mark the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. The political weight of that destination was not lost on Poles: Katyn, where Soviet NKVD forces executed roughly 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in 1940, had been a source of bilateral tension for decades.

NBP issued this coin as part of a broader commemorative program released on the first anniversary of the crash.