The Bolsheokhtinsky bridge will have worthy competitors in beauty, but no one will challenge its primacy as the most interesting and original. At least the residents of St. Petersburg think so.
Prehistory
The Peter the Great's bridge in St. Petersburg is notthe first of the permanent city crossings. The question of its construction has been raised in the city administration since 1880, but was postponed, in particular, because of the resistance of the then influential water transport community.
In 1885, the Okhta suburb was annexed toSt. Petersburg, but only formally, since without a permanent crossing the economic management of the territory for the capital authorities remained unworkable. Okhta's population grew rapidly (from 1869 to 1900 - by 20 thousand people), industry and trade expanded. In addition to the traditional shipbuilding and timber processing, there appeared enterprises: weaving, processing of pig iron, asbestos and paints.
Two large shipping ship could not cope withincreased volumes of food and consumer goods, raw materials and finished products. The construction of the bridge became an urgent need, and in 1900 the development of a program for competitive projects began. The construction site was chosen area of the Little Okhta.
Bolsheokhtinsky bridge in St. Petersburg: construction history
Через год конкурсное проектное задание было prepared by One of the points of his most important conditions was the presence of a railway for horse and steam traction. In 1901, the commission announced an international competition. For the best project was awarded 16 domestic and foreign works. None of them met the necessary technical requirements, and the competition committee rejected them all. Approval was awarded to the project of two military engineers: Professor Grigory Grigorievich Krivoshein and his co-author Lieutenant Colonel Vladimir Apyshkov.
It took six years for corrections and revisions before the draft was adopted (1907). Its author Georgy Krivoshein was to lead the construction process.
In 1909, on June 27, a celebration was held onthe occasion of laying the bridge and assigning it a name in honor of Emperor Peter the Great. The three-year construction contract was signed by the Warsaw company, the span by-pass mechanism pledged to manufacture the Petersburg metal plant.
By the autumn of 1911, the ferry was ready. On October 26, after the solemn opening ceremony, the bridge was put into operation, and until 1971 served without any repairs.
Post-revolutionary renaming of the Bolsheokhtinsky bridge
Мост Петра Великого на плане Петрограда 1917 года was listed as Okhtensky, then in the post-revolutionary power he received the name of Bolsheokhten, and since 1956, due to innovations in spelling, Bolsheokhtinsky.
In the period of large-scale repair of 1993-1996The original “Bridge of Emperor Peter the Great” was reconstructed in the span with dates on the sides: 1908 and 1911. Rumors spread among Petersburgers that the crossing is now called the Peter the Great Bridge, and the former Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge was renamed from 1991. This is an unfortunate mistake: in the year named, the historical name was returned to the Trinity Bridge. But, despite the official name in the maps and documentation Bolsheokhtinsky, it is called the original name in honor of the founder of the city.
Global repair
The large-scale reconstruction of the 1990s tookmore time than building the whole bridge. But the work has been tremendous. The lifting mechanisms, electro-hydraulic drive and metal structures of the adjustable span are completely replaced, instead of 25 thousand leaky rivets, high-strength bolts are mounted. Tens of thousands of square meters of old coating, cleaned to a metal base, covered with asphalt cloth. Thousands of tons of metal structures, cubic meters of concrete, the quadrature of the granite cladding needed for the repair of the Peter the Great Bridge in St. Petersburg are calculated.
Not without incidents.When the test layout of the almost repaired bridge was made, the laid asphalt simply moved to the side spans from the smooth surface of the valves. We had to re-lay the canvas on the adjustable span, and so that it did not slide off, the fittings were welded onto the metal base of the wings.
Other changes
Since 2000, the Peter the Great BridgeSt. Petersburg is effectively illuminated by 1300 most powerful lamps. The tram service stopped since 2005 increased the transport capacity, but the final dismantling of the rails ended only by the end of 2010.
Petersburg Bridge and Paris Tower
During the construction period and after the opening of the bridgemost contemporaries considered his form coarse, not conforming to the look of elegant Petersburg. But such was also the Parisians considered the Eiffel Tower, which is 22 years older than the Bolsheokhtinsky structure. The similarity of such diverse objects does not end there. They have a special beauty that is appreciated by descendants. Bulky details with multi-row rivets are connected in an ordered light pattern. This interlacing of metal with its geometrical consistency enchants and makes both designs very similar.
It is very likely that Krivoshein was in Paris andgot acquainted with the device of the tower of Gustave Eiffel. As a bridge engineer Grigori Grigorievich, other constructions of the French designer, especially his bridges, could not but be interested in. If you observe the projects implemented by Krivoshein and Eiffel, you can see their similarity in a simple openwork weave of metal.
Comparison with Tower
Bridge of Emperor Peter the Great in St. Petersburgcompared with his London counterpart, built seventeen years earlier. Tower - also a drawbridge, three-span bridge made of metal, mounted on stone pillars. But its towers, which are twice as high as Bolshokhtinsky, also served as a pedestrian crossing, when the wings of the span were bred. However, it was these quadrangular, fortress-like structures that made it possible to compare two unusual structures.
But this is not all that is related to St. Petersburg andLondon bridges. In the film “The Treasures of Agra” (1983) from the domestic series about Sherlock Holmes, Bolsheokhtinsky “played” Tower Bridge, and the Neva - Thames. Having found the necessary angles, adding fog with a smoke machine and taking pictures on white nights, the cinematographers reproduced on the Leningrad embankment a similarity to London.
Where do moose come from?
Among the archival photos you can see the oldA snapshot of an elk wanders among a crowd of curious people on the Peter the Great Bridge in St. Petersburg. A lot of these animals were found in the surrounding swampy forests. Sometimes, some of them swam to the area of Malaya Okhta, where a gentle descent was found near the bridge, convenient for climbing ashore. Sometimes people had to help stray animals to get out on dry land.
Bolsheokhtinsky treasure
And the last story about this design, enteredin the list of Petersburg legends: golden rivet. When and why such rumors appeared - nobody knows. Ostensibly, builders or designers were laid at random one precious rivet. That it was not found, the detail was covered with a thin layer of ordinary metal. And always, since the discovery of this object, there were quite a few eccentrics trying to find the only secret rivet among a million identical ones.
