The Grodno fire tower: a noon fanfare five minutes from Gosteam

Two minutes before noon, Zamkovaya Street falls still. From the gallery of a brick tower a short fanfare sounds, and it carries across the old town.

On Zamkovaya, at the foot of Castle Hill, stands the fire lookout tower. Thirty-two metres of early-twentieth-century eclecticism. From its gallery people still look out over the roofs of the old town. A trumpeter in a firemaster’s uniform keeps that watch now.

From Gosteam at 31 Mostovaya Street to 19A Zamkovaya Street it is about 350 metres. On foot that is four or five minutes.

A noon the whole centre can hear

Every day, two minutes before twelve, a trumpeter climbs to the gallery. The melody was deliberately moved to 11:58: on the hour the old chimes of the Farny Church strike, and the two signals are not meant to overlap.

The fanfare is short, half a minute or a little more. It carries across the historic centre: along Zamkovaya, past the castles, on towards Sovetskaya. The trumpet comes from thirty-two metres up. The old town falls quiet, then answers with applause.

A huge crowd gathers at the foot of the tower. In season it is easily two hundred people or more: tour groups stop, some leave their hotel for this hour on purpose, others were simply walking to the castle and stayed. Phones go up. Everyone waits for a silhouette in a helmet to appear on the gallery, and then they listen.

The tradition was revived on 2 July 2009, Independence Day. Signals from fire towers already existed in the nineteenth century: an alarm, a celebration, a short fanfare. Today the trumpeter puts on a nineteenth-century uniform, climbs one hundred and twenty steps and tells the city one thing: Grodno is at peace.

The gallery above the red roofs. From here a fanfare sounds every day two minutes before noon. Photo: Mike1979 Russia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

A place that grew out of a great fire

On 29 May 1885 fire swept through the wooden centre and left behind what contemporaries called an “African desert”. About three quarters of the city burned. Tents for the homeless were pitched by the Neman; money was collected across the country. Among those who helped was Eliza Orzeszkowa.

First they put up a wooden lookout. It was not enough. In 1902 a stone tower rose on the same spot. The fire depot, the oldest in Belarus, was finished in 1903–1904 to a standard late-nineteenth-century design: similar buildings stood in St Petersburg, Irkutsk and Białystok. A fire train had already been stationed here in the 1840s.

The tower has six tiers, an eclectic silhouette and a circular gallery with wrought-iron railings. Wars barely touched it. Since the 1980s a weathervane has sat on the spire: a fireman holding a cockerel by the tail. The red cock is an old sign for fire.

Below, on the wall of the station, hangs a large mural by Uladzimir Kachan: firefighters of different ages. One of the women in an Emergencies Ministry uniform has a face in which it is easy to recognise the Mona Lisa. The artist said it was a compliment to the dispatchers.

Uladzimir Kachan’s mural on the station building. Photo: Kapsuglan, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

How to see it without missing the hour

The tower is still at work. On the ground floor Fire and Rescue Station No. 1 still operates: engines leave through the same gates they used a century ago.

The Museum of the History of the Fire Service opened in 2008. The exhibition is small: helmets, pumps, leather buckets, a diorama of the 1885 fire. Visits are by appointment, usually on weekdays from nine to five. It is better to call ahead: +375 29 788-12-55 or +375 152 72-36-48.

Mass access to the tower itself is currently closed: the load-bearing timbers of ship pine are original, and they are being conserved. The trumpeter is heard from the street. That is enough.

If you want both the museum and the fanfare, book a morning visit and be standing by the tower by 11:50.

What to see next

After the tower you are already on Zamkovaya Street. A short loop looks like this:

Gosteam → fire tower → Old Castle → New Castle → Nativity of the Theotokos Convent → back to Gosteam

The drama theatre stands on the same Mostovaya Street, on the way back. If you want the Farny Church and the pharmacy-museum, walk on to Sovetskaya. That is another five or six minutes, still on foot.

This is how the centre works when you sleep in it. The tower, the castles, the convent’s domes and the Farny Church around the corner fold into a single loop. No transfers required.

Why this is easy from Gosteam

Grodno has plenty of rooms next to the centre. What is rarer is to walk out of the hostel before noon and reach the fanfare without watching a map.

You can leave the car on the closed car park and not touch it until you leave town. A family does not have to decide whether to catch the trumpeter or take the children across the whole city. Anyone travelling alone steps into the street and immediately understands why Grodno is a city to be seen on foot.

From reception to the brick tower it is about 350 metres. Four or five minutes. The shortest way to the loudest noon in town.

Gosteam has whole hotel rooms and hostel beds, a kitchen, Wi‑Fi and closed parking. Pick dates or call +375 33 31 31 312.

Address: 31 Mostovaya Street, Grodno