Saturday, 8 July 2023
LITHUANIA
This cover from Lithuania depicts a miniature sheet showing a historical building in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The Old Town of Vilnius, one of the largest surviving medieval old towns in Northern Europe, has an area of 3.59 square kilometres. It encompasses 74 quarters, with 70 streets and lanes numbering 1487 buildings with a total floor area of 1,497,000 square meters. It was founded by the Lithuanian Grand Duke and King of Poland Jogaila in 1387 on the Magdeburg rights the oldest part of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, it had been developed over the course of many centuries, and has been shaped by the city's history and a constantly changing cultural influence. It is a place where some of Europe's greatest architectural styles—gothic, renaissance, baroque and neoclassical—stand side by side and complement each other. There are many Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox churches, residential houses, cultural and architectural monuments, museums in the Old Town. In 1994 the Vilnius Old Town was included as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in recognition of its universal value and originality. It has been recognised as one of the most beautiful cities of the Old Continent that also has the largest baroque Old Town in the whole of Eastern and Central Europe.