Bulgaria Inside

Sahat Tepe is one of the lower Plovdiv hills (46 m). Yet, its central location reveal pleasant view of Plovdiv’s main street and the old part of town. The hill is just a few steps to the west of the main street. Some houses and cobblestone streets appear in its lower part. A couple of alleys and steps continue upwards through rocks and forest.

Sahat Tepe has a south and a north peak. The saddle between the two has been turned into a recreational area. In the evening, young people preferring to meet in the open air rather than in pubs and clubs gather there. A radio and television tower built in the 50s stands on the south peak. An old Ottoman clock tower still stands on the north peak. The tower was once visible from most Plovdiv parts, but is today obscured by the higher trees.

The streets in the lower parts of the hill (to the north and west) are some of the quietest in the city center. Only people living there make the effort to walk uphill. The streets are lined with houses preserving the original architecture from the beginning of the 20th century. A large Evangelical church from 1901 appears on the northern slope.

Sahat Tepe in means ‘clock hill’ in Turkish. The clock tower has no dial, similarly to the earliest clock towers in Europe. It marks each new hour through bell chime. The original tower was built between 1596 and 1611. It probably is the second oldest city clock in the European part of the Ottoman empire.

The construction of mechanical city clocks became prestigious and widespread much later – in the 17th and 18th centuries. Until then Muslims living in the empire used the astrolabe to determine the exact hours for the daily prayers. The astrolabe was a navigation tool of ancient origins that was greatly improved by the medieval Arab scientists. The ‘ezan’, the call for prayer, would define the rhythm of the oriental city’s life. Five times each day it would resound over Plovdiv from the minarets of its 53 mosques.

Sahat Tepe got its name before the construction of the clock tower. Most probably, Ottoman newcomers used an even older Greek name of the hill. In 1920, the remains of a large water clock from the Antiquity were discovered at the foot of Sahat Tepe.

Many years passed since 1600 and the Ottoman tower clock has not measured it all evenly. The inscription in Arabic that you can see on the tower testifies that it was re-built in 1812, most probably following the destruction of the older building in a fire. When the Bulgarian state was established, the clock probably stopped functioning until the city council ordered a new mechanism from Vienna. The current mechanism is a replica made by a Bulgarian clock master who used the sketches of the Viennese design. Since the 1990s, the clock’c bell can be heard again in Plovdiv.