Or will it persevere?
If you've been to Southern Bulgaria and visited one of the county capitals there, Haskovo, you have probably seen this interesting clock tower called "Monument 1000 Years Haskovo".
I passed by and under it, tens of times. Recently, however, I noticed it is starting to go to ruin with several pieces of its thick steel plates starting to fall apart and down. Instead of being instantly reconstructed, last year, 2020, a "safety" net has been installed around it, only limiting any visitors from passing under it. In the first half of 2021, I had to visit the city several times on business and I noticed that it is going to wreck much faster now.
All that raised lots of questions for me and I decided to spend more time and research what is going on, starting from the very beginning of this extraordinary place...
The first big strange fact is I couldn't find any info about this monument in the Wikipedia page of the city, because... it wasn't included. I found a very short resume about it only in the official visitor site of Haskovo: https://visithaskovo.com/destinations/%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%83%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82-1000-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8-%D1%85%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE/
The page gives a really dry info and specs about the history of the clock tower, built in 1985, the authors were the sculptor Krum Damyanov and the architect Simeon Borisov. The clock mechanism has been manufactured in Leipzig, Germany.
The most interesting info about the monument is that each of the granite and concrete blocks of it has a symbol embodied that represents parts of the history of Haskovo and its specifics. In such an artistic and vivid manner. Yet, that fact isn't mentioned anywhere. Yup, another strange anomaly...
The fact that there is so little info about it and the way it is neglected in the present days, made me even more curious. I started to search for people who live or lived there who may know more. So I ended speaking to and interviewing more than 10 persons, some of them working for the municipality. I intentionally avoided contacting the local authorities via the official channels because I was looking for personal perspectives and points of view and not the official local government position and plans, influenced by politics.
I was so surprised to find out that the most of the people I spoke to, have totally negative sentiments towards the monument. Still, the opinions were very controversial! Some of the people claimed the clock never worked. Some said this clock tower was "unnecessary luxury in times of poverty.". Here, I am not so sure how much could steel pipes and concrete and granite blocks cost. I was sincerely surprised that people just... hated it.
It was clear to me those "interviews" won't get me to the truth and roots of it all :)
So I started digging for publications from around the year the clock is built.
After speaking to the friend of a friend of a friend, I got to one of the former managers of the local history museum, who provided few references to old newspapers.
Here is a list of the newspapers I am about to post mobile shots from:
- "National Culture" / "Народна Култура" - a weekly newspaper about culture
- "Hornet" / "Стършел" - а weekly satirical and comic newspaper
- "Shipka" - a week-days local newspaper
- "Haskovo Tribune" - a week-days local newspaper
So in one sunny spring day I went to the reading-room of the local library and after registering and acquiring a "readers card" and the corresponding permissions I finally got my hands and of course, my mobile camera on them newspapers :)
Note that all these newspapers have that bold format, huge size, so typical for the socialist years of Bulgaria. You will see on most of the photos I put for scale one coin of 1 BGN or one Bulgarian Leva, its size and weight are very similar to those of a 0.50 Euro (fifty cents) coin. (By the way 1 EUR = 1.95583 BGN, that is fixed for the last two decades so the 1 BGN coin value is actually 1/2 of 1 EUR ;))
Here is how my table there looked at a point:
Do you see the coin next to my A4 sheet with the list, next to my glasses? :)
This whole process of digging printed articles was a lot of fun actually, as it "teleported" me four decades back in the past...
Above you see the first article I found, "The Bold Clang of the Bell", Culture, 1989, it is by the sculptor Emil Popov and in short he pays his deep respect and admiration to the author of the so called "new clock tower". He also seem convinced in his opinion that the clock will become one of the favorite places for the citizens of Haskovo :)
"Singing clocks (merry clerks)", "Hornet", 1988. By Dobrin Dobrev.
Here the local journalist in a satirical and critical manner puts his doubts in the reasoning and the benefits of the monument, comparing it to expensive and unnecessary... furniture :) As this clock tower was very close to one of the few central hotels at that time, the author of the article predicted that the guests of the hotel will sleep-jump in their beds on all round hours :)))
In the next article I found, "Shipka", 1986, the monument is called "A business card of Haskovo". This article is an interview of the sculptor of the monument, Prof. Krum Damyanov by Valcho Mihaylov. The author here states that the tower is much more a "symbol" of Haskovo than just an ordinary clock, he also implies that it seems most of the people don't understand that.
There is a info-bio block about Krum Damyanov as well:
Reading about the several huge and very famous accomplishments of the artist, I got the insight that one of the reasons the locals don't like the clock tower is because the sculptor has nothing in common with the city, Haskovo, himself. I must add the note here that all the artists who have been very successful during the socialist era in Bulgaria were quite controversial and not liked by the masses, unofficially, of course, as they were somehow close to the dictators ruling the country in these decades. This opinion was also confirmed by the people I spoke to as I heard strong negative and positive opinions about him. As another interesting fact, I accidentally saw on the national TV channel that the last president of Bulgaria presented a special medal to Prof. Krum Damyanov. Isn't that so typical for the huge artists - to be strongly loved and hated at the same time...
In the previous article the sculptor mentioned that the new clock tower location was selected because during the construction of the hotel were discovered the base of an old clock tower. Here are the next few articles to demonstrate this, from "Haskovo Tribune", 1978 to 1980. It seems in this couple of years there are many public discussion and opinions of where to rebuild the old clock tower and how it looked. So finally, the "Monument 1000 Year Haskovo" has been built on top of the ruins of the old clock tower and years later a copy of the original clock tower was built few meters away from the new, "artistic brother". I also found there is a web-cam mounted on the monument and you could see how the new-old clock tower looks like in downtown Haskovo: https://www.windy.com/-Webcams/Bulgaria/Haskovo/%D0%A7%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B0-%D0%BA%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%B0-%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%83%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%82-%221000-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8-%D0%A5%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BE%22/webcams/1519724589?41.962,24.840,8
I wasn't sure what is the purpose of the "Control Sheet" I had to keep with me that day and return to the security detail of the library on my exit :)
Anyway...
After reading all those articles and listening to all the people who had opinion on that matter, I am not surprised that it feels a bit like a "mess". Everyone had a different opinion - the architects, the artists, the historians, the residents. I suppose this is why the central authorities had decided and executed their own plan. Only my theory, of course. However, the present condition of the monument proves what I've been thinking. Check out for yourself:
The disintegrating steel plates
The ugly wired fence put around it
The garbage that is piling up inside
The missing letters from the memorial plate
The recycling bins put so close next to it
I feel ashamed and not proud by all these but I have the sneaking suspicion the real agenda for the monument is that at a point it will become so dangerous for the passing by that it will be demolished and forgotten.
I sincerely hope I am wrong about the future of this piece of unique art and it gets reconstructed this year, as an article from last November says: https://haskovo.live/%D1%87%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA%D1%8A%D1%82-%D0%B4%D0%BE-%D0%B0%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B0-%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%B5%D0%BD-%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD/
Here are the rest of the recent photos I took at that controversial and somehow forgotten place...
I wish I hear its bell "singing" soon. At least, I am certain I will enjoy the views each and every new time I go there...
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