Kerch, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe, sits at the mouth of the Cimmerian Bosporus — the strait connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The city was founded as a Greek colony, Panticapaeum, around the 7th century BC, and later became the capital of the Bosporan Kingdom. Ukraine's 2000 commemorative coin series marking ancient cities of the country drew on this deep pre-Slavic history, a pointed cultural assertion during a decade when Ukraine was actively constructing a national identity distinct from its Soviet past.
Kerch, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Europe, sits at the mouth of the Cimmerian Bosporus — the strait connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov. The city was founded as a Greek colony, Panticapaeum, around the 7th century BC, and later became the capital of the Bosporan Kingdom. Ukraine's 2000 commemorative coin series marking ancient cities of the country drew on this deep pre-Slavic history, a pointed cultural assertion during a decade when Ukraine was actively constructing a national identity distinct from its Soviet past.