Andreevsky Bridge

The bridge across the Moskva River between Pushkinskaya Embankment near Neskuchny Garden and Frunzenskaya Embankment is officially called the Pushkinsky Bridge, but city residents and city maps almost always use its former name — Andreevsky. The reason lies in the structure’s unusual history: the pedestrian crossing was built in 1999 from the main arch of an old railway bridge, moved to its new location whole rather than designed anew. Relocating a multi-ton structure in this way, without dismantling it, is rare in Russian practice for preserving monuments.

The original structure was erected in 1905–1907 for the Moscow Circle Railway between the Kanatchikovo and Vorobyovy Gory platforms. The design of the steel arch was developed by engineers Lavr Proskuryakov and Pyotr Kamentsev, while the design of the piers was entrusted to architect Alexei Pomerantsev, the author of the Upper Trading Rows on Red Square. At its opening the bridge was named Sergievsky, in memory of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. After the February Revolution of 1917 the crossing was renamed Andreevsky, after the Andreevsky Monastery on the right bank.

The steel arch span was about 135 meters long, 9.8 meters wide, with the arch rising to a height of 15 meters; its elements were joined by riveting, typical of bridge construction in the early 20th century. During the relocation the structure was supplemented: a glazed gallery appeared over the roadway, and vestibules with elevators were built into the shore piers. The riverbed at the new location is wider than before, so the arch on the Frunzenskaya Embankment side rests not on a shore hinge but on a pier placed out in the channel.

By the late 1990s the old bridge had fallen into disrepair: corrosion and fatigue cracks forced a speed limit of 40 kilometers per hour for trains. The reconstruction of the Circle Railway and the construction of a section of the Third Ring Road required the crossing’s removal, but the authorities decided to relocate the historic arch rather than destroy it. The work was carried out by Bridge Detachment No. 18 under engineer Andrei Ostrovsky. The span, weighing about 1,400 tons, was loaded onto barges and floated one and a half kilometers downstream to a point off 1st Frunzenskaya Street on 22 May 1999; river navigation was halted for 8.5 days.

Today the bridge serves pedestrians only and forms part of Gorky Park’s territory as a viewing platform overlooking a bend of the Moskva River and the university’s high-rise. A covered gallery protects the crossing from bad weather, and elevators in the piers provide access for visitors with limited mobility. Near the entrance on the Pushkinskaya Embankment side a plaque with the history of the former bridge has been preserved. On most maps the structure is still labeled Andreevsky, although its official name is Pushkinsky.

The Andreevsky Bridge remains a rare example of saving an early 20th-century engineering monument through relocation rather than reconstruction from drawings. The combination of the riveted 1907 arch with modern glass structures has made the crossing a recognizable landmark of south-west Moscow, and the relocation of a one-and-a-half-thousand-ton structure without dismantling it has gone down in the history of Russian bridge-building as a unique operation.