The current building of the Minsk City Hall was built in 1600 on the territory of the Upper Market, which is now Svobody Square. The building was decorated with clocks, an unheard-of luxury for those times. And in the town hall itself were stored standards of units of weight and volume, and, of course, held meetings of the city magistrate.
In 1744 the building was reconstructed, it acquired the features of the classicism style popular in those years. In 1795 the Magdeburg law was abolished. Since then, the building has housed the city court and the police, and later a music school and even a theatre.
In the middle of the 19th century, Russian Emperor Nicholas I ordered the destruction of the town hall building, a symbol of Polish independence and freedom. It took a century and a half for the Belarusians to restore this building-symbol on the territory of their own state, independent from Russia. But first architects and historians studied ancient drawings, archival materials, and only after these thorough investigations the building of the town hall was restored according to the project of architect S.Baglasov.
On the tower of the Town Hall you can see the coat of arms of the city of Minsk and a clock with a dial 120 cm in diameter. The chimes hourly play the melody of the "Song about Minsk" written by Igor Luchenk, a famous Belarusian composer.
