The Clock on Piata Mihai Viteazul

On top of P-ta Mihai Viteazul (aka "Complexul Leul"), in the heart of Cluj, sits a large, brutalist, cement clock. It's so drab that, on a dreary day, you won't even notice it against the grey sky. Besides, it doesn't even tell the (right) time.

For the past 26 years, it's been stuck at 12:07. A man named Jozef Palko stopped it the moment the Ceausescus fled by helicopter from the roof of the Central Committee building in Bucharest. As the building's administrator - and a witness to the previous day's shooting of anti-communist demonstrators in Unirii Square - he thought it important to capture the moment in history; the minute that communism fell in Romania.

Many years later, when I took this snapshot, I found that the contrast between the crisp, bright flags and the dreary commie architecture is a reminder that, with time, things do change.

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SamFebruary 22, 2016
Time changes but never seems to move forward :-)
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