Bulgaria Clock [UPDATED]
Talisha Hendrics
The tower consists of three proportional sections with the total height of 30 m, which makes it the tallest clock tower in Bulgaria. Distinctive features are its baroque elements and frescoes decorating the corrugated cornices. It contains similar architectural elements to those of the Plovdiv and Koprivshtitsa houses of the National Revival period, and a pointed cube reminiscent of the forms of Islamic architecture. It is decorated with blue frescoes. The building materials included stones from a quarry near the village of Bozhenitsa and timber from the Vrachesh area.
The lower section of the tower is square, reaching a height of 11 m. It has stone masonry with a door, which leads inside for servicing and winding the clock mechanism. The middle section is narrowed and its edges are outlined by half-columns, ending with cornices, and the walls are slightly wave-shaped, which adds elegance to the building. The upper section rises over the cornice and the cornice narrows even further. It has a hexagonal shape and houses the clock and the bell. In 1870 a weather-cock was placed on its very top. From the entrance of the tower to its last section, there are spiral-shaped wooden stairs, which lead to the clock mechanism.[2]
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The first clock tower in Bulgaria is probably the one built at the end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th Century in Plovdiv. At that time, clock towers were common in Europe, but were a novelty in the Ottoman Empire. The convenience of knowing the time was soon appreciated by merchants and craftsmen, and the clock tower fashion spread all over the country. Their number peaked in the 19th Century, and in Bulgaria there was hardly a city without its own clock tower.
At the end of the 19th Century, however, the appeal of clock towers in Bulgaria began to wane. More people had their own watches, craftsmen went bankrupt and workers in factories no longer needed the toll of the clock tower to know when their shift began or ended.
Considered to be useless and old-fashioned, many clock towers were knocked down. This trend started soon after Bulgaria's liberation from the Ottomans, but peaked in the 1970s, when many cities saw their old central areas refashioned in a soulless variation of Soviet architecture.
Built by master craftsmen from Bessarabia, this clock tower is the main attraction of Berkovitsa, a sleepy town in the western Stara Planina, used by tourists as a base for the hike to the Kom Peak (2,016 m). The town's other claim to fame is its brass band.
Perched on the slope of a hill overlooking the city centre, the Dupnitsa clock tower has had a troubled history. It was built as a fortification by Süleyman Kargalia, a semi-autonomous local leader who was so ruthless that people in Dupnitsa celebrated when they heard about his violent death during the Battle of Belgrade in 1813. They, however, kept the tower and later added the clock mechanism. In the 1880s, Czech historian Konstantin Jireček saw a cemetery around the tower. Today, however, the tower is surrounded by the trees of the pleasant city garden.
The elegant structure that dominates the central area of Razgrad is the descendant of an earlier clock tower from the 18th Century. Travellers who saw the original noted that its bell had been made in Banat and had probably ended up in Razgrad as war booty. With time, however, the condition of the old clock tower started to deteriorate, so it was replaced with the new one, which was restored in the 1960s. The clock mechanism was brought to the local History museum.
The Tower of the Meshchii is another example of an older structure later turned into a clock tower. It was built as a defence tower for the wealthy citizens of Vratsa, who wanted to protect their lives and property during brigands' attacks or rebellions. During sieges, they would safeguard their valuables at the ground level and live on the three floors above, shooting at attackers from the loop holes in the walls. By the end the 19th Century this type of defence was already an anachronism and a clock was installed in the tower. Today the tower is a major attraction in Vratsa and is considered a rare example of late medieval fortification architecture.
Probably the first clock tower to be built in Bulgaria, it had such a significance for Plovdiv's population that they named the hill on which it stands after it. Even today most people know it as Sahat Tepe, or Clock Hill, rather that the official Danov Hill. The clock tower which stands there today, however, is not that old. It was built from wood and stone in 1812 to replace the original, which was destroyed by fire.
People were more than happy to have a clock tower again in their city, as the building inscription suggests. "May God bless this clock, which was renewed without error, much care and labour have been put into it. Hail to the master, a hundred times hail! Look at it and marvel!"
The tallest clock tower in Bulgaria is also one of the youngest. It was built in then Orhanie by a Bulgarian architect, Vunyu Markov, in the fashionable Baroque style which dominated the decorative arts and architecture in Bulgarian lands in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Today, the clock tower still inspires interest but, sadly, the effect is less the result of its elegant appearance and more of its surroundings. In the 1970s the centre of Botevgrad was ruthlessly renovated. Old buildings were demolished and replaced with a particularly monstrous array of structures and spaces, which passed for "avant-garde" and "modernist" in then Communist Bulgaria.
We only use this term when talking about the 12 hour clock, though, not the 24 hour clock (more on that later!) The 12-hour clock can be traced back as far as Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. Both an Egyptian sundial for daytime use and an Egyptian water clock for nighttime use were found in the tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep I. Dating to c.1500 BC, these clocks divided their respective times of use into 12 hours each. The Romans also used a 12-hour clock. Daylight was divided into 12 equal hours and the night was divided into four watches.
On 12 September 2018, the European Commission presented a proposal to end seasonal time changes in 2019 throughout the EU, while leaving Member States the freedom to decide their standard time.The system of bi-annual clock changes has been increasingly questioned, by citizens, by the European Parliament, and by a growing number of Member States. The Commission has, therefore, analysed available evidence, which points to the importance of having harmonised rules in this area to ensure a proper functioning of the internal market. This is also supported by the European Parliament as well as other actors (e.g. in the transport sector). The Commission has also carried out a public consultation, which generated around 4.6 million replies, of which 84% were in favour of discontinuing the bi-annual clock changes while 16% wanted to keep them. A report was produced on the results of the consultation.
The final decision is now with the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament. They will have to come to an agreement before the proposal can take legal effect. On 26 March 2019, the European Parliament adopted its position on the Commission proposal, supporting a stop to the seasonal clock changes by 2021. The Council has not yet finalised its position.
European countries introduced summertime arrangements in the last century to save energy, particularly in times of war or during the oil crisis of the 1970s. Starting in 1980, the EU gradually adopted legislation putting an end to the diverging schedules of the national clock changes.
The outstanding design may have been inspired by 17th-century French clocks that indicated the time with two framed numeral discs or wheels. It is also possible that the digital-display stage clock of the Scala in Milan has been the role model. For his Five-Minute Clock, Johann Christian Friedrich Gutkaes took an innovative approach with two fabric-lined drums with printed numerals, driven by a wheel train behind a frame with two windows. The clock indicated the hours with Roman numerals I to XII and the minutes with Arabic numerals from 5 to 55 with a blank minute aperture at the top of the hour. When we designed the outsize date after the refoundation in 1990, we adopted this concept for the display, the left-hand aperture also remained blank from the first to the ninth day of the month.
Gutkaes designed and built the clock together with his employees, including his partner and later son-in-law, Ferdinand Adolph Lange. The reason why they implemented the clock with numeral drums is not known, but the most plausible explanation is that the display had to be legible all the way to the rear rows of seats. The drums that had a diameter of about 160 centimetres could accommodate numerals that were roughly 40 centimetres high. The space in the proscenium above the stage was not sufficient for a similarly easy-to-read analogue display.
The reconstruction of the Semper Opera House, that had been destroyed in World War II, also involved making a new Five-Minute Clock. This third stage clock was created by a team of experts headed up by engineers Klaus Ferner and Harry Julitz. The reconstruction of the giant clock project involved a cautious modernisation of the drive technology and took over six years to complete.
Tertsch's defining moment of the day came during the run leg of the competition when she was able to break away from the pack and clock the fastest run time of the day. "The most memorable part was when I put in a surge on the run and managed to pull away. At that point, I was pretty sure that I could win the race," she recalled after the race.
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