From may 16 opens to vehicular traffic via the new bridge to the Crimea through the Kerch Strait. Dreamed about it a half century ago, but to win element was only in 2018. the length of the bridge is 19 km, and it is one of the largest in Europe. TUT.BY collected interesting facts about the object.
The bridge was opened ahead, and the first for him drove the builders themselves on trucks. Behind the wheel of a KAMAZ truck at the head of the column was Russian President Vladimir Putin.
He called it a historic event: “is Historic because in different historical periods, including under tsars, the people wanted to build this bridge.”
The Kerch bridge is just a working title. In December 2017 has passed the online vote, was attended by 380 thousand people. Now it is officially the Crimean bridge (scored 64% of the votes). Among the alternatives was the “Reunification Bridge”, “Taurida”, “Russian”, “Freedom Bridge”, “Bridge of unity”, “Bridge of Hope” .
In fact, the structure consists of two parallel tracks: the four-lane road and rail. Total length is 19 km, while directly over the water area is 6 km away.
The route starts on the Taman Peninsula (Krasnodar Krai of Russia), then runs along an existing 5 km long dam and the island of Tuzla, and then crosses the Kerch Strait and goes to the Crimean coast.
On the bridge was the dream of British, Nicholas II, Hitler and the Soviet Union
It is known that the idea to build the bridge was announced by the British in 1870, they wanted to build a direct railway to India. But the price scared. The idea caught Nicholas II — if not interfered with the First world war.
During the Second world war, the crossing intention is to make Germany on behalf of Hitler was created by the project and even began construction. But soon the Kerch and Taman were liberated by the red army.
Finally, in 1944, the Soviet builders were able to build a bridge for 150 days. It from the Yalta conference to Moscow returned the government delegation. But strengthening the construction did not, and as a result of severe ice in the winter several transmission towers were damaged. The bridge has decided to temporarily dismantle.
Since the Union had several projects, but they remain on paper. In the 1950s the Crimea and Kuban bound ferries, as it was until recently.
In 2010, the then presidents of Ukraine and Russia Viktor Yanukovych and Dmitry Medvedev agreed to build a bridge for the Olympic games in Sochi (2014). Crimean authorities then estimated the project at $ 1 billion.
After Russia’s annexation of Crimea in March 2014 Vladimir Putin instructed to build a double bridge for cars and trains.
40 thousand vehicles per day and protection from earthquakes up to 9 points
During the construction we had to consider a number of challenges: Maritime climate, seismic activity and mud bottom. The depth here varies from 2 to 10 meters.
In order not to obstruct navigation, was built several huge arches.
They rise above the water to a height of 35 meters, length is 227 meters. So the bridge seems to go up the hill.
On the road part between the supports and the spans installed 760 shock-transmitters. They are special devices that protect structures from earthquake, will withstand tremors up to 9 points.
“It’s like seatbelts in the car. They allow the bridge spans to “breathe”, that is free to move with imperceptible movements caused by temperature conditions. And during the earthquake shock-transmitters are activated and seismic distribute the load evenly on the supports,” explained the engineers.
In addition, for these reasons, the spans are relatively short — from 55 to 63 metres, and a lot of supports, almost 600.
Sections were constructed on land and then using powerful jacks, the rolling devices are looming on the base with floating platforms (see photo below).
Video: how it moved the last meters of the bridge from the Taman Peninsula
In the end, the bandwidth of the Crimean bridge will be 40 thousand cars and 47 pairs of trains per day. The highway consists of four lanes, covering — asphalt. Only trucks will be allowed to fall, and rail links will open in 2019.
On the dividing strip and along the edges of the bridge there are barriers. For example, an external one and a half meters tall can withstand the impact of the car at speeds of 100 km/h or truck at 70 km/h.
On difficult road conditions drivers would report to a special Board.
In the Strait of frequent thick fogs, so the entire length of the axle is equipped with powerful lamps. They are designed to withstand the impacts of marine climate.
According to the project on the bridge is safe to organize a movement at a speed of 120 km/h But the actual speed will coordinate with the traffic police, according to the SDA it should be 90 km/h.
In addition, new roads were built on both sides of the bridge. For example, in the Crimea, built a four lanes road to the new highway “Tavrida”, which runs across the Peninsula to Sevastopol on 251 km From the Kuban built a new road to 40 km, and the Bank reinforced to prevent landslides.
On the construction of the bridge since February of 2016 worked 10 thousand people. The customer was “road service” General contractor — “stroygazmontazh” Arkady Rotenberg. The price was $ 228 billion Russian rubles, which is approximately equal to $ 3.6 billion.
Video: 27 months of construction in 3 minutes
Ukraine have a negative attitude to this idea Russia is still first, and called the construction illegal. After the opening President Petro Poroshenko spoke sharply: “the Bridge will definitely need invaders when they will urgently leave our Crimea”.
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