“What time is it?”, “What time?”, “How much time has passed?”, “How much time is left?”… these are questions we ask over and over again every day, because our lives are inextricably linked to the concept of time… Nearly fifteen years ago, while reflecting on time, its origins, and the ways it is measured, I decided to take a “snapshot” of all the clock towers in Bulgaria. After traveling more than 45,000 kilometers, hundreds of unforgettable encounters and fascinating stories dating back to ancient times, and countless photographs taken even in the most remote corners of our homeland, this project is now a reality.

“Taking Time into Your Own Hands “—that is literally, without exaggeration, how I would describe the book you are holding right now. It’s been a long journey from humanity’s first understanding of the concept of time to today, when we couldn’t imagine life without a clock nearby. The story begins in antiquity—with the first attempts to measure units of time using objects and the shadows they cast.

It traces the emergence of the first sundials and water clocks in Egypt during the 13th and 14th centuries B.C. It reveals interesting facts about time measurement in ancient China and how and why the first clock towers appeared in Europe and in our region.