Lazar the Serb

Lazar , also known as Lazar the Serb or Lazar the Hilandarian , was a Serbian Orthodox monk and horologist who invented and built the first known mechanical public clock in Russia in 1404. The clock, which also struck the hours, was built at the request of Grand Prince Vasily I of Moscow . Prior to his arrival in Moscow, Lazar had served as a monk in the Serbian Hilandar monastery at Mount Athos. The clock tower was located in the palace behind the Annunciation Church. However, the clock and the church in which it was located have not survived.

A Serb, Lazar was born in the town of Prizren, in the Serbian Empire. He was a monk with the rank of crnorizac serving at the Serbian Orthodox Hilandar monastery, a centre of Serbian religious and secular culture and the first Serbian university, located on Mount Athos. Lazar likely left Mount Athos as a result of the Ottoman conquests in the Balkans. Russian chronicles speak of Lazar, newly arrived from Serbia, inventing and building a clock on a tower in the Grand Princes palace in Moscow behind the Annunciation Church at the request of Vasily I, the Grand Prince of Moscow . It was the first ever springdriven clock, or striking clock, in Russia, and also the countrys first public clock. The clock numbers were written in Church Slavonic. It was among the first ten such advanced clocks in Europe, and was regarded a technical miracle at the time. Clocks in urban towers, or municipal hour signals, did exist earlier in Italy, though it is not known how they indicated the hours. In 1344

Source: Wikipedia