Sahata Clock Tower

Overview

Sahata clock tower is one of the few preserved architectural monuments from the 17th century. It is believed that it was built between 1650 and 1710, but the exact date of construction has not been established.

Historians associate it with the time of the city's economic rise. The regulation of the working day in the craft workshops and shops and the avoidance of unfair competition in Peshtera required the simultaneous "raising and lowering of the shutters" on the whole market under the blows of the Sahata. Craftsmen and merchants were most interested in the exact distribution of the working day.

To all these reasons for the need to build the "Sahata" in Peshtera there is another. The clock tower served not only the traveling and city-wide structures, but also the Muslim worship. This conclusion was reached after analyzing the specific historical facts: According to Ivan Popov, the clock tower was built around the year when the mosque was built in Peshtera, ie around 1650, and has the same construction as it. Here we add that perhaps it was built in connection with it / the mosque /. According to other sources, the tower was built so that the Turks would not protest that a Bulgarian church was being built in their neighborhood.

The old clockwork did not have a dial and measured the hours of Turkish clockwork.