Bridges of Belgrade

Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, is located on two major rivers, the Danube and the Sava which are spanned by 11 bridges in total.

[3] In 1521, Karaca Pasha, military commander of the Ottoman sultan Suleiman the Magnificent built a pontoon bridge across the Sava.

[4] The Ottoman first conquered less fortified city of Zemun in Syrmia, and then built the bridge back to Belgrade.

After opting against the construction of metro, despite developing the project for over a decade, in 1984 the tramway tracks were laid over the bridge and the concrete panel was replaced with the steel one.

[12] In March 2016, mayor of Belgrade Siniša Mali announced the massive reconstruction of the bridge, slated to begin in the late 2017.

[10] Type: a) Sava; b) road; c) urban; Ostružnica Railroad Bridge (Остружнички железнички мост) was built in order to move the transport of toxic and explosive materials from downtown Belgrade.

[15] After the World War II, in the 1950s, the general idea was that trolleybuses should take over the major role in the public transportation.

Due to the financial constraints, the works were halted in 1998 and the NATO bombing in 1999 pushed this project out of any future plans as so much other infrastructure had to be repaired.

In the next years nothing new was done as works included only the maintenance of the already placed steel construction and the reparation of one of the pillars which was damaged by the barge.

The bridge pylon is located on the tip of the island, which has been reinforced with large amounts of concrete and has been slightly enlarged to provide stronger foundations.

[24][25] Component parts of the deck were manufactured in China and delivered in transportable units on a sea and river-route via Rotterdam through the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal to the pre-assembly yard next to the construction site at Mala Ciganlija in Belgrade.

[28] The bridge was featured in the fifth episode, season nine of the Discovery Channel documentary television series Build It Bigger.

Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's orders were that they should build a provisory crossing, but Yugoslav prime minister Josip Broz Tito convinced him that a proper bridge should be built.

Type: a) Danube; b) road/railway; c) urban; Pupin Bridge (Пупинов мост) connects the neighborhood of Zemun and the suburb of Borča.

The Borča section is still not urbanized and the construction of the bridge prompted some ideas for the future projects in the area.

[41][42] Type: a) Danube; b) road; c) urban (Zemun)/suburban (Borča); Long Bridge (Дуги мост) was constructed further to the south from the city, near the village of Ostružnica on Šumadija side of the river.

As the Syrmian side across the Sava was a vast marsh at the time (modern New Belgrade), the bridge didn't stop at the bank but continued for some length above the swamp.

According to the records, a seasoned Belgrade master craftsman Đorđević "in only one month, with the help of his 400 workers, built the Long Bridge, using 2,000 tree trunks, 1,100 wooden piles, 15,500 bundles of palings and 12,000 palisade pickets."

The third "twin", based on almost the same project was built in Vienna, Austria, crossing the Danube - the second incarnation of the Reichsbrücke which collapsed due to the structural failure on 1 August 1976.

[4] The construction of the bridge was patterned in the Serbo-Byzantine style, placed on two pylons made of reinforced concrete, while it was held by the steel cables.

[4] It was praised for having both the important infrastructural and symbolicIvalue as it was the first road bridge spawning the Sava, ending its purpose as the border river and marking the directions in which the city will develop.

In 1966, the military placed the pontoon bridge to connect the Lido Beach, on the Great War Island in Zemun, for the first time.

Since 1996,[46] the bridge has been placed each summer during the swimming season as it connects the beach and the neighborhood of Zemunski Kej, across an arm of the Danube.

[49] Every Belgrade's general urban plan (GUP) since the mid-1950s included the bridge over the Danube, connecting the neighborhoods of Višnjica and Krnjača, over the peninsula of Ada Huja.

It will connect the Banat region of Vojvodina directly with central Serbia, which would reroute traffic, especially the freight and hazardous transports, from downtown Belgrade to the outer suburban area.

[61] The bridge will extend from the projected section of the bypass beginning at the interchange of Bubanj Potok and ending at the suburb of Vinča.

It will connect New Belgrade with the island of Ada Ciganlija across the Sava, as the continuation of the Omladinskih Brigada street in Block 70.

Public, engineers, architects and other experts were almost all against it,[10][83] concluding that the noisy bridge is being removed because of the administration's luxurious pet project, the Belgrade Waterfront.

In the 1970s, the measurements were made, geometric survey was conducted, locations of the pillars were set and in the end, even the project was finished.

[90] In the late 2021 city announced construction of two new bridges, for the purpose of expanding the urban BG Voz rail system.