How the Crimean Bridge survived from the time of the Tatars' raids to the present day

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

More recently, only one was associated with the words "Crimean Bridge", famous all over the world, including thanks to the footage from the March of German prisoners of war in 1944. In a sense, the Crimean Bridge has already happened, and more than once, to get in the way of those who tried to conquer Moscow. True, then it was not a bridge, but a ford, and it was located far outside the city.

Ford and raids of the Crimean Tatars

Now the Crimean Bridge is part of the Garden Ring in the very center of the capital, but in the 16th century there was a ford across the Moscow River at this place, and both banks occupied wide endless meadows. Those times were a period of constant raids by the Crimean Tatars, and not far from the river, where it was shallow enough to wade, the Crimean courtyard arose. Tatar messengers and merchants stopped there, and the name spread both to the bank from the side of the Yakimanka River and to the shallow water itself, it became the Crimean ford. For some time this name was inherited by the bridge built here.

Brod also played a role during the Troubles of 1598-1613. When the troops of the Lithuanian hetman Khodkevich approached Moscow in August 1612, the forces of the Second Militia led by Kuzma Minin crossed the Crimean ford to the opposite bank of the Moskva River, and the enemy was defeated.

At the end of the 18th century, with the construction of the Vodootvodny Canal, a dam was built on the river, which caused the water level to rise at the site of the Crimean ford. For this reason, it was decided to build a bridge. In 1789, it was built - a wooden structure called the Nikolsky (or Nikolaevsky) bridge - along the nearby Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Khamovniki. This bridge was a floating, pontoon, and therefore every spring it was required to build it up again, since the flood caused damage to the structure.

From the pontoon bridge to the mousetrap

At the beginning of the 19th century, instead of a floating one, a permanent wooden bridge was erected, which also provided for the passage of ships. The architect was Anton Ivanovich Gerard, major general, sugar refinery and engineer, who had previously participated in the restoration of the Kitay-Gorod wall. The new bridge began to be called the Crimean Bridge. In those days, the Moskva River in the area of the Crimean Bridge became very shallow, so Muscovites lost the habit of the word “ford” for a long time. As the writer Mikhail Zagoskin said, five-year-old children were playing knee-deep in water in the river, and "jackdaws and crows walked about on wide shallows."

The Crimean bridge was constantly in need of repair, and in 1873 it was replaced by a new metal one. The design was designed by architects Amand Struve and Vladimir Speyer. The bridge consisted of two spans of 64 meters each, the total weight of the elements of the structure was about four thousand tons. There was a lane for transport in each direction, sidewalks for pedestrians were located, and at the beginning of the 20th century, tram rails were also laid. The new bridge soon received the nickname "mousetrap": the entrances were decorated with turrets interconnected by arches, and the structure itself was a "corridor" with openwork walls.

Suspension Bridge and the "Big Waltz"

In the twenties of the XX century, the reconstruction and construction of several large bridges in the center of Moscow were conceived, a competition was held for the best projects to create Bolshoy Kamenny, Bolshoy Krasnokholmsky and Crimean bridges. The jury, evaluating the proposals, included scientists and engineers, as well as the artist and art critic Apollinary Vasnetsov. But then the competition was curtailed, the projects were not implemented, and the idea of reconstruction of the Crimean bridge was again turned to in the second half of the thirties.

Then the project of the architect Alexander Vlasov was chosen. He made the decision to build a suspended structure on pillars-obelisks, engineering developments were carried out by Boris Konstantinov. The existing bridge was moved several tens of meters downstream, and the construction of a new one began in its former place.

As expected, such large-scale transformations were accompanied by legends - one of them said that among the details of the new bridge there is one cast of pure gold, allegedly it was installed by Staliy themselves. The opening of the new Crimean bridge took place in 1938, after which the old one was dismantled. For some time, until 1957, in addition to the road, tram tracks also passed along it.

The length of the bridge reached 668 meters, the width was 38.5 meters - twice as much as that of its predecessor. The roadbed was suspended on ropes - cables. The design did not interfere with the view, did not hide the Gorky Park located on the banks of the Moskva River. The bridge was called "metal lace" - it really gives the impression of airiness, lightness, despite the fact that it weighs over ten thousand tons.

The new bridge became for the USSR one of the symbols of both the new time and new victories - in 1944, on July 17, at this place, captured Germans crossed the Moskva River. This march, called Operation Big Waltz, was conceived in order to show the world the number of captured soldiers of the German group "Center". Wehrmacht soldiers and officers walked along the central streets of the capital, along the Garden Ring, along the Crimean Bridge - in total, this "parade" lasted more than four hours.

And not far from the bridge, there are still reminders of those times when the river was shallow, and people crossed it using the shallows. The history is kept by the names of the city streets: for example, Ostozhenka, from Ostozhye - once on this bank of the Moscow river, hay was collected in stacks for the sovereign Konyushenny Dvor.

About how the "Big Waltz" operation was prepared and carried out, here.