Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge

The Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge connects Vasilyevsky Descent and Varvarka Street near the Kremlin with Bolshaya Ordynka on the opposite bank of the Moskva River. A three-span reinforced concrete structure, 554 meters long including its approaches and 40 meters wide, it is one of the key crossings in the historic center, offering a panoramic view of St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin wall.

The bridge stands on the site of one of the city's oldest crossings: from 1498, a floating pontoon bridge operated here on the road from the Tver Highway to the Serpukhov Highway. In 1789 it was replaced by a wooden pile structure, and in 1829 stone piers were built to support three wooden spans of 28 meters each. A new crossing, designed by engineer Pyotr de Witte, was laid in 1830 and completed in 1833, but it burned down in 1870. Two years later, metal spans built to the designs of engineer Alexander Struve, cast at his plant in Kolomna, were installed; the name became fixed after the neighboring Moskvoretskaya Street.

The structure acquired its modern appearance as part of the 1935 General Plan for the Reconstruction of Moscow, which envisaged five new bridges across the river's bend. The bridges' axes were calculated so that the streets radiating from them would converge fan-like on Dobryninskaya Square, and the clearance height was raised to 14 meters to allow the passage of Volga river vessels. For the sake of the new southern approach, part of the buildings along Moskvoretskaya Street and the beginning of Bolshaya Ordynka, which was to be widened to 60 meters, were demolished. Construction took place in 1936–1938 to a design by architects Alexei Shchusev and Patvakan Sardaryan together with engineer Vasily Kirillov — it was Moscow's first reinforced concrete bridge of this type.

Two widely known events from the late 20th and early 21st centuries are associated with the bridge. On May 28, 1987, West German amateur pilot Mathias Rust, who had crossed the Soviet state border without permission, landed his light aircraft on the bridge's roadway. On February 27, 2015, politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead on the bridge; since then a spontaneous public memorial has been maintained at the site of his death, and in everyday speech the bridge is sometimes referred to by his name, although it has never been officially renamed.

In 2018–2019 the bridge underwent its first large-scale reconstruction, which lasted thirteen months. Builders reinforced the foundations of the piers, replaced the load-bearing structures of the main span, and rerouted the heating network, while traffic was not fully halted: while one half of the bridge was under repair, the other remained open to pedestrians and vehicles. The work was completed on December 16, 2019.

Today the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge remains one of the main transport and pedestrian links between the Kremlin and Zamoskvorechye, as well as a popular viewing spot in the very heart of Moscow. Its history connects a medieval river crossing, a Stalinist urban-planning vision, and events from recent Russian history.