Betancourt Bridge

[1] The bridge is part of the Centre Transport Bypass (CTB) [ru], it allows non-stop traffic from Pulkovo Airport to the Krestovsky Stadium.

Since that time the design was changed significantly, instead of the straight lay the bridge became S-shaped in order to avoid the ‘Almaz’ military shipyard that was located on the bank of the Little Neva.

It is named in honor of Agustín de Betancourt, a prominent engineer of Spanish origin, who worked on many architectural structures in Saint Petersburg.

[2][3] The construction of the Betancourt bridge was followed by a series of city-planning scandals; several historical residential buildings were demolished under forged documents and fraudulent commissions.

[9] The General Urban Plan of Saint Petersburg had a project of a passage through Sernyy island to Uralskaya and Remeslennaya streets since the 1980s.

[12] In 2012 Georgy Poltavchenko, the Governor of Saint Petersburg, announced the relaunch of the project in preparation for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.

[13][14] The bridge was planned as a part of the Centre Transport Bypass (CTB) [ru] and allow non-stop drive from Pulkovo Airport to the Krestovsky Stadium.

[15] It was meant to alleviate traffic on the Tuchkov Bridge and provide a bypass of downtown directly to the Petrogradsky District.>[16] In autumn 2012, the federal government approved the project.

[18] According to the original project, the bridge had a straight main span, but it was altered after protests of the military authorities, owners of the ‘Almaz’ shipyard on Malaya Neva bank.

[19][15] By the time of construction start, the shipyard had been already closed and demolished, its territory had been sold to a private developer for real estate.

The city could have purchased these lands to build a straight bridge as planned initially, but the authorities decided to free more space by demolishing several houses on Remeslennaya street instead.

[22][23] First of all, the bridge was crossing a UNESCO Heritage object - Historic Centre of Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.

[44] In order to find a legal opportunity to destroy the house, some unknown persons forged the construction date in the cadastral certificate.

[46][47][48][49] Later the General Prosecutor office and the city police found out, that changes in the cadastral certificate were deliberately made on the basis of forged architectural evaluation.

[51][52] The apartment owners were offered inadequate compensations two times lower than the average cost per square meter of real estate on the local market, thus people could not afford to stay in their district.

[59] In February 2018 governor Poltavchenko cited state Sanitary Rules and Norms that do not require any minimal distance between households and such construction sites.

[72] In December 2020 the bridge was honoured with the First Prize in the International Professional Competition of Architects and Prospectors in ‘Best Innovative Project 2020’ nomination.