Bogdan Khmelnitsky Bridge

The Bogdan Khmelnitsky Bridge is a pedestrian bridge across the Moskva River, connecting the Dorogomilovo and Khamovniki districts not far from Kievsky Railway Station. It links Berezhkovskaya Embankment with Rostovskaya and Savvinskaya embankments, serving as a convenient crossing between two districts of the capital. It is one of the few crossings in Moscow whose structure was inherited from an early 20th-century railway bridge rather than built anew for pedestrian traffic.

The basis of the modern structure was the spans of the Krasnoluzhsky Bridge — a railway crossing built in 1907 between the Luzhnetskaya and Berezhkovskaya embankments, designed by architect Alexander Pomerantsev, structural engineer Lavr Proskuryakov, and engineer P. Ya. Kamentsev. When the bridge no longer met the city's transport needs, it was decided not to dismantle it but to move it further upstream. On August 31, 2000, the span structure, weighing about 1,400 tons and 135 meters long, was floated roughly 2.5 kilometers and installed on new piers near Kievsky Railway Station; the work was carried out by the Transstroy corporation at a cost of 12–15 million rubles.

The architectural design of the new bridge was created by Yuri Platonov. The historic arched structure of the former railway bridge is completely concealed beneath a glazed vault styled after Viennese Art Nouveau, echoing the outline of the old span. The overall length of the crossing is 235 meters, with the structure weighing about 1,750 tons, and its reinforced-concrete abutments extend directly into the riverbed. Shops, cafés, and kiosks are located inside the glazed space, while observation balconies with views of the embankments are set along the sides of the bridge.

The bridge opened under the name Kievsky Pedestrian Bridge on September 1, 2001, and three years later was renamed in honor of the Ukrainian hetman Bogdan Khmelnitsky. In February 2002 a mass record was set on the bridge: more than two thousand people kissed simultaneously. From the bridge's observation points there are views of the House of the Government of Russia, the Ukraina Hotel, the main building of Moscow State University, and the domes of Novodevichy Convent.

Today the bridge remains a busy pedestrian route and one of the viewing points in central Moscow, offering a panorama of the river from the Borodinsky Bridge to the Sparrow Hills. The shopping and café spaces under the glass vault make the crossing not only a transit route but also an urban recreational area. Nearby are the “Kievskaya” metro stations of all three lines, making the bridge part of the everyday route for many Muscovites.

The bridge's history offers a rare example, for the Russian capital, of preserving an engineering structure by relocating it rather than demolishing it. The combination of a century-old engineering base and a modern glazed shell has made the crossing a recognizable architectural landmark of the Moskva River embankments and a monument to the technical solutions of the turn of the century.