Krymsky Bridge

The Krymsky Bridge is a suspension crossing over the Moskva River on the route of the Garden Ring, connecting Zubovsky Boulevard with Krymsky Val Street. The present structure was built in 1938: the architectural design was carried out by Alexander Vlasov, and the engineering calculations by Boris Konstantinov. The name is linked either to Krymskaya Square and Val, to the ancient Crimean Ford, or to the courtyard of the Crimean khan that stood here in the 16th century. In 2007 the bridge was included in the register of protected cultural monuments of Moscow.

Since ancient times a ford existed here, used by the Crimean Tatars during their raids on Moscow — hence the name that took hold; the “Crimean Ford” is first mentioned in documents from 1673. In August 1612, events of the Time of Troubles unfolded at this ford: the militia's cavalry struck across the river into the flank of Hetman Khodkiewicz's army, and Kuzma Minin with three cavalry squadrons completed the rout of the enemy near the Crimean Court. Later a commercial ferry operated here, and after the water level rose due to the construction of the Vodootvodny Canal, a pontoon bridge made of rafts was installed in the 1780s.

In the early 19th century the temporary crossing was replaced by a permanent wooden bridge on piles, but frequent floods required repairs, and in 1873 a metal bridge was built to a design by engineers Amand Struve and Vladimir Shpeyer. Its openwork truss with the roadway running inside and turrets at the entrances earned the bridge the nickname “mousetrap.” Replacing this crossing was already discussed in 1920 at an all-Russian competition, but the design recommended then, by engineer Nikolai Streletsky, was never realized, and the idea was revisited only in 1935.

In the competition for new bridges across the Moskva River, the jury chose the design by Vlasov's team, which, on Streletsky's advice, opted for a suspension structure on obelisk-shaped pylons instead of massive arches. In 1936 the old metal bridge was moved about fifty meters downstream and temporarily kept in operation, while a new chain bridge was assembled in its place using American “Wehrle” cranes. The opening took place on 1 May 1938: the crossing became Moscow's first suspension bridge and the largest structure of its kind in pre-war Europe.

The design principle, partly borrowed by Konstantinov from the bridge over the Rhine in Cologne, was a rarity for domestic bridge-building: two pairs of 27-meter pylons are not connected to each other at the top, and the load-bearing chains, 297 meters long, were made of especially strong “DS”-grade steel. The total length of the crossing is 668 meters, of which the bridge itself accounts for 262.5 meters with a width of 38.4 meters; construction consumed about ten thousand tons of metal — the bridge remains the record holder for steel consumption among the world's bridges and the only suspension structure on the Moskva River.

In 2001 and 2012 the bridge was reconstructed without stopping traffic: the granite facing and road surface were replaced, and the waterproofing and anti-corrosion protection of the metal were renewed. Today the Krymsky Bridge remains not only a transport artery of the Garden Ring but also one of the most recognizable engineering monuments of pre-war Soviet architecture.