Design

The need to build a permanent bridge in this place was called by the city planning project of Leningrad in the 1930s, which provided for the significant development of its southeastern part and the planned organization of a circular transport highway, part of which was to cover the southern areas of the city and go to the Gulf of Finland.

The bridge project was developed by a group of engineers from the design department Lenmosttrest and under the leadership of professor G. P. Peredery, with the participation of engineer V. I. Kryzhanovsky on the drawbridge and architects A. S. Nikolsky and KM Dmitriev.

According to the terms of the project, it was necessary to provide a drawbridge in the center of the bridge, the side spans, in accordance with the requirements, could not be more than 100 m each. A variant of a three-span bridge with a central drawbridge 43 m long and two sideways 100 m each, covered with reinforced concrete arches was adopted for development. The use of reinforced concrete for fixed spans caused maximum metal savings.^[2]

In 1932, before the construction of the bridge began, a 1/5 life-size model of permanent arched superstructures was made, which was installed in the Tauride Garden and tested with almost double the design load. The test was held with the participation of G. P. Peredery, V. I. Kryzhanovsky, V. K. Kachurin and A. A. Dolzhenko.

Building

The bridge was built in 1932-1936. The construction of the bridge was carried out under the leadership of academician G. P. Peredery, V. I. Kryzhanovsky and chief engineer of Lenmosttrest S. A. Dzhabua. Reinforced concrete superstructures were cemented to the scaffolding on the shore. The finished arches were transported to the place of installation on pontoons using winches. Work on the transportation of the span structures was carried out under the guidance of a large shipbuilder and mathematician academician A. N. Krylova. Under his leadership, giant pontoons were designed and manufactured.^[3] The movement of the pontoons was entrusted to EPRON - “Special Purpose Underwater Expedition,” which specializes in lifting sunken ships and has the appropriate powerful winches, cables, anchors, etc. The depth of the Neva at this place is about 13 meters.^[4] The operation of transportation on pontoons of span structures weighing up to 4000 tons was carried out in the practice of bridge construction for the first time.^[5] The first structure was installed on November 6, 1935, the second on August 11, 1936.^[2] On November 6, 1936, the bridge was inaugurated for traffic.