Timewheel

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The Timewheel (Időkerék) is the world's largest hourglass, situated in Budapest, Hungary next to City Park, right of Heroes' Square and behind the Palace of Art (Műcsarnok). It is made of granite, steel, and glass, and weighs 60 tons. The "sand" (actually glass granules) flows from the upper to the lower glass chamber for one year. The last few grams of sand flow through at exactly midnight on New Year's Eve and the Timewheel is then turned 180 degrees so the flow of the sand can resume for the next year. The turning is done by manual power using steel cables and it takes roughly 45 minutes for 4 people to complete the half turn. The Timewheel was unveiled on 1 May 2004 to commemorate the historic enlargement of the European Union that also admitted Hungary (along with some other former East European communist countries) to the EU. Since its inauguration, the whole project has been constantly criticised for being not much more than a waste of public money.