Khabarovsk Bridge

For other uses, see Khabarovsk (disambiguation).

Khabarovsk Railway and Automotive Bridge after its reconstruction in 1999.

The old Bridge under construction.

Khabarovsk Bridge is a road and rail bridge built in 1999. It crosses the Amur River in eastern Russia, and connects the urban-type settlement of Imeni Telmana in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, and city of Khabarovsk in the Khabarovsk Krai. Until that time an older bridge built 1916 existed near it.

History

Railway bridge built 1916

The Khabarovsk Bridge (1916) was a railway bridge that carried the Trans-Siberian Railway across the Amur River near the city of Khabarovsk, Russia. Measuring some 2,590 meters (about 8,500 feet) in length, the structure remained the longest bridge in Imperial Russia, Soviet Union and Asia for decades.

The bridge was scheduled to be constructed at a cost of 13,500,000 Russian rubles to designs by the eminent bridge builder Lavr Proskuryakov in merely 26 months. However, a year after construction work began on July 30, 1913 the First World War broke out. Since the bridge spans were manufactured in Warsaw, they had to be brought to Khabarovsk by sea all the way around Eurasia - in fall of 1914, a merchant ship carrying the last two spans was sunk in the Indian Ocean by the German cruiser Emden delaying the completion of the bridge by more than a year. The bridge was finally completed for an official opening on October 5, 1916. It was named Alekseyevsky after Tsesarevich Alexis.

Five years later, during the Russian Civil War, two of the eighteen spans were blown up by the retreating Red Army. The bridge was repaired in 1925 and functioned for many years.

Bridge built 1999

The bridge on the 5,000 Russian ruble banknote.

In 1999 a new bridge was built right next to the old one, carrying automobile and rail traffic on two levels. It is 3,890 m long. The original spans of the old bridge were dismantled in the 21st century, though its supports remain. The reconstructed Khabarovsk Bridge is depicted on the 5,000 Russian ruble banknote.

References

• Khabarovsk Bridge (Russian language)

See also

• Trans-Siberian Railway