TIRANA: Albanian jeweller Pirro Ruco laboured day and night for five years to capture the essence of his country in a spectacular luxury watch.

Now the timepiece, worth roughly $1.4 million, is set to face off against the best watches from across the world at the Geneva Watchmaking Grand Prix in November.

Set under a sapphire dome, the hours are marked by 12 golden folk dancers — each in different regional dress — set on Murano glass, the minute and hour hands adorned with eagle talons in homage to Albania’s national symbol.

Ruco’s rollercoaster rise mirrors that of Albania, from poverty and isolation as the most closed communist regime in Europe, to rollicking capitalism. Along the way the jeweller overcame jealousy, the secret police and being sent into internal exile to rise to the pinnacle of his profession.

It all began for Pirro — as he is known in his homeland — in 1985 when he was asked to make a medal in red and gold bearing the head of Enver Hoxha, the paranoid dictator who ruled the small Balkan nation with an iron fist for more than four decades. “That saved me,” he said from his workshop tucked away in an alley in the capital Tirana. The medals were awarded to the regime’s most loyal supporters and later caught the eye of Hoxha’s wife.

The turn of fortune saw thousands more produced and worn by communist cadres across Albania. Down but not out, he was able to bounce back after crafting a ring bearing the image of the late husband of a member of the communist politburo and in July 1990 won a prize for a piece featuring Albania’s 15th-century national hero Skanderberg.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2024