Zamość

A cover from Zamość , Poland 🇵🇱 with stamps about the city ! 

Zamość is a historical city in southeastern Poland and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is situated in the southern part of Lublin Voivodeship. 

Zamość is a unique example of a Renaissance town in Central Europe, consistently designed and built in accordance with the Italian theories of the "ideal town," on the basis of a plan which was the result of perfect cooperation between the open-minded founder, Jan Zamoyski, and the outstanding architect, Bernardo Morando in 1580.

 Zamość is an outstanding example of an innovative approach to town planning, combining the functions of an urban ensemble, a residence, and a fortress in accordance with a consistently implemented Renaissance concept. The result of this is a stylistically homogeneous urban composition with a high level of architectural and landscape values. A real asset of this great construction was its creative enhancement with local artistic architectural achievements.

The city was overrun by the Germans during the invasion of Poland at the outbreak of World War II; The Nazis created an execution site in the Zamość Rotunda. More than 8,000 people were massacred there, including displaced residents of the region and, later, Soviet prisoners of war captured during Operation Barbarossa. Local people resisted the German occupiers with great determination; they escaped into forests, organised self-defence, helped people who were expelled, and bribed kidnapped children out of German hands (Zamość Uprising).  The Nazis found it difficult to find many families suitable for settlement in the area, and those who did settle often fled in fear, because the former Polish residents would burn down houses or kill their inhabitants.

After World War II, Zamość started a period of development. In the 1970s and 1980s the population grew rapidly (from 39,100 in 1975 to 68,800 in 2003), as the city started to gain significant profits from the old trade routes linking Germany with Ukraine and the ports on the Black Sea. 

Town halls - Zamość

Date of issue - 29/03/1958

400 years of Zamość

Date of issue : 03-04-1980

European monument care - Zamosc 

Date of issue : 11-11-1975

I am yet to find the details of the other stamp on any catalogue :( 

Most historic buildings are located in the Old Town, whose main distinguishing features have been retained. It includes the regular Great Market Square (Rynek Wielki) of 100 x 100 metres with the splendid Town Hall (Ratusz) and the so-called "Armenian houses", as well as fragments of the original fortress and fortifications, including those of the Russian occupation in the 19th century.

The most prominent building is the Town Hall, built at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, following Bernardo Morando's design. The Town Hall stands on the north side of the Great Market Square, regarded as one of the most beautiful 16th-century squares in Europe. It is surrounded by a complex of arcaded-houses built by the richest Zamość merchants. It is a square, measuring exactly 100 metres in both width and length, crossed by the two main axes of the old town. 

I wish to see this beautiful city someday ! Thanks Wojtek for this beautiful cover :)