The Clock Tower by the State Bank is the only chasozvonya (bell-and-clock tower) in Nizhny Novgorod, a small architectural landmark in the historic center of Nizhny Novgorod, symbolizing the state chimes. The tower's unusual function is tied to a city legend about the ceremonial arrival in the city of the last Emperor of the Russian Empire.
Variants of the Legend
To the right of the The State Bank Building (now the Central Bank of the Russian Federation) on Pokrovka stands an inconspicuous two-story clock tower. The story of how this clock came to be built is an interesting one.
The patriotic version of the city legend holds that the structure was built to screen a nearby house where an officer lived who had a habit of stepping out onto his balcony in his underpants to do his morning exercises.
Before the visit of Emperor Nicholas II to Nizhny Novgorod, this man was asked not to come out onto the balcony undressed on the day of the visit, May 13, 1913, because the sight was rather unaesthetic — to which the reply was: "I couldn't care less!".
So the clock tower had to be built overnight, to hide the stubborn officer's balcony from the Emperor's eyes.
The second popular version of the story is about a merchant who intended to drink tea from a samovar with his family as the Tsar-Father passed by.
There is also a known version involving a brothel, whose head — the "madam" — regularly hung underpants on the balcony to attract the merchants visiting the bank, and refused to take down this peculiar sign.