Silver coin 50 CZK Piešt'any 1991

Silver Coin Piešt'any

Silver commemorative coin issued in Czechoslovakia in 1991 with the motif of the spa town Piešt'any. This rare silver coin is housed in a plastic capsule, certificate of authenticity is not included.

Piešt'any (German Pistyan, rarely Bad Püschtin, Hungarian Pöstyén, Polish Pieszczany) is a spa town in Slovakia, on the Váh River. It lies in the Trnava Region. It is an international centre for the treatment of rheumatic diseases and an important regional centre of culture, education, sport and recreation.

Human settlement has existed here since prehistoric times; people came here mainly because of the mineral springs, which did not freeze in winter. The Moravan Venus, a small statue similar to the Venus of Věstonice, dates from this period. It was found in the village of Moravany nad Váhom, near Piešt'any. The first written mention of the town dates back to 1113. At that time it was called Pescan and consisted of several smaller settlements. There was probably a Johanite monastery here. The local mineral springs were first mentioned in the book "De admirandis Hungariae aquis hypomnemation" (On the miraculous waters of the Hungarian monarchy) by Georg Wernher in 1549. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the town was threatened by Turkish invasions and anti-Habsburg uprisings.

Piešt'any was owned by the Erdődy family until the mid-19th century; they owned the spa until World War II. The family built the first spa here in 1778; it was damaged by a flood in 1813. At the beginning of the 19th century, they were rebuilt in a neoclassical style and named after Napoleon. At the end of the 19th century they were leased by the Winter family, who turned them into a world-famous spa. They were nationalised after World War II and expanded in the 1960s and 1970s; the town itself grew. Since 1996 Piešt'any has been a district town again.

Only the ruins of the church and the monastery have been preserved from the Middle Ages. One of the oldest secular buildings is the Kurhotel. It probably has a Renaissance core, rebuilt several times to its present form. The colonnade bridge by Emil Belluš is an important functionalist building from 1930-1933, with a statue of a barlolamač by R. Kühmayer and glass etchings by Martin Benka.Since 1931 there is the Balneological Museum, and nearby on the Váh River is the Sĺňava dam. Since 2004, the Slovak Military History Museum has also been located here.

Thanks to its location on the Váh, Piešt'any has very good transport connections. Both the D1 motorway and the main railway line between Bratislava and Žilina pass through the town. The city also has its own airport.