Pristina's clock tower and the bell that kept moving

The clock tower is the shape you spot above the rooftops of Pristina’s old town. It isn’t the city’s oldest building or its tallest, but it’s one of the few pieces of the old bazaar still standing, and its story beats that of many grander monuments. Here it is, told from the Ministry of Culture’s heritage record, which is the fullest source there is.

A late 19th-century tower beside an older one

The Ministry of Culture dates the present tower to the late 19th century and explains that it was built near the site of an earlier clock tower. That first tower stood in the courtyard of the building that now holds the Kosovo Museum, according to the museum’s own record. Today’s tower ended up at the heart of the old town, in the courtyard of a school building and very close to the Imperial Mosque.

The record calls it one of the most important works of practical, everyday architecture in Pristina, and that makes sense. In an Ottoman town, the clock tower set the hours for traders and daily life in the bazaar, which is why it sat right next to the mosques and the markets.

How it’s built

It’s a hexagonal tower 26 metres high. Up to 16.5 metres it’s built of stone, and from there in solid brick, finished with a timber roof clad in lead. The corners are dressed stone set in lime mortar, while the panels between them are rough stone, also in lime. Small arched openings pierce every face.

Inside there’s a spiral staircase. In the stone section the steps are slabs about 3 centimetres thick; in the brick section they turn to timber. The Ministry reads that change as proof that the brick part was added later, and for me it’s the most telling detail of the whole tower. You can see it from the street too, because the colour shifts exactly where the stone stops.

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The bell that came from Vushtrri

This is the best bit. The old bell carried a Romanian inscription in 2-centimetre letters running round its whole surface, recording that it was made for Voivode Jan Moldovan in 1764, and it was decorated with motifs like beech leaves. According to the Ministry, the Ottomans carried it off as booty from their wars in Moldavia and Wallachia, hung it in the tower at Vushtrri and, on the orders of Jashar Pasha, it ended up in Pristina. Despite the journey, the record says it was in good condition.

The ending is less romantic. The clock mechanism worked until the 1970s and then stood idle. In 2001 the works and the bell were stolen, and since 2002 the tower has told the time with a digital clock.

Is it worth stopping for?

Yes, even if only in passing. The tower is protected as part of the old bazaar ensemble, first listed by the authorities in 1967 and now under temporary protection, and it’s free to look at from the street. I found no official source saying you can climb it, so I’d treat it for what it is, a monument you admire from below.

I’d fit it into the first hour of the morning, between the Imperial Mosque and the Great Hammam of Pristina, which are right beside it. Carry on south and you reach Pristina’s old bazaar, with the Stone Mosque and the marble fountain, and all of it features in one day in Pristina. Bring a few euros in change for a coffee nearby; Kosovo uses the euro, so there’s no need to hunt for another currency once you’ve changed your pounds.

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