Silver coin 50 CZK Marianske Lazne 1991

Silver Coin Marianske Lazne

Silver commemorative coin issued in Czechoslovakia in 1991 with the motif of Mariánské Lázně. This rare silver coin is housed in a plastic capsule, certificate of authenticity is not included.

Mariánské Lázně (German: Marienbad) is a town in the Cheb District of the Karlovy Vary Region, 27 km southeast of Cheb. The city has an area of 51.78 km². In 2016, it had over 13,000 inhabitants. Mariánské Lázně is the youngest of the famous triangle of West Bohemian spa towns.

The site on which the second largest spa town in Bohemia, Mariánské Lázně, is situated today was in ancient times full of swamps and completely deserted. In 1197, the nobleman Hroznata founded a monastery in the settlement of Teplá, under whose administration the area of today's spa belonged. The monks were also the first to notice a salt spring in their forests and even tried to extract salt by evaporation. The salt was later successfully sold as a laxative.In the meantime, various rumours began to circulate about the healing effects of the mineral waters and the first sick people headed to the springs. The monastery officials then had the springs cleaned and the path to them improved. However, the first attempts to establish a spa failed. The locals did not trust the baths. During the reign of Empress Maria Theresa, the mineral waters were analysed again and it was also during this period that the name Marienbad first appeared.

Marienbad was named after the first spa building built at Maria's Spring. This spring was long before that called the Stinking Spring because of its pungent smell, but it got its present name from the Marian image that was supposedly affixed near the spring by a soldier returning from the war as a thank you for having healed his wounds there. The further development of the spa was due to the abbot of Teplá, Karel Kašpar Reitenberger, who began building spa houses and pavilions in the early 19th century.

In 1897, the future British monarch Edward VII visited Mariánské Lázně for the first time. It is not known what made the prince visit the spa. However, on his first visit, Edward, who went by the title of Duke of Lancaster, fell in love with Marienbad and visited nine times in total. The British king turned the world's attention to the Marianske Lazne, which transformed itself each season to accommodate an increasing number of guests. Most of the buildings were rebuilt and extended during this period and new hotels were constantly opening.

After the First World War and the establishment of Czechoslovakia, guests returned to the spa again. The rapid growth in traffic attracted more visitors and the spa had to deal with accommodation problems. Soon, however, the economic crisis came, which again halted further development of the town. Fortunately, the Second World War almost spared the town and the spa character of the town was preserved. During the so-called Kristallnacht in 1938, the Jewish synagogue was destroyed by the Nazis. The site of the destroyed synagogue on Main Street has remained empty until today.

After the post-war expulsion of the German inhabitants and the population change, Mariánské Lázně became a partly dilapidated town. A more significant turnaround occurred after 1989 and much progress has been made in the last 15 years. However, some of the historic spa buildings remain abandoned to this day, such as the former Forest Mill Hotel or the Kavkaz Spa Complex on Goethe Square, where British King Edward VII stayed.