Crimean bridge: the main facts about the construction of the century

December 18, 2018 should be the first car to drive over the bridge across the Kerch Strait. He is no even an official name - some call it "the Crimean" someone "Kerch". However, in the course of construction are not affected in any way.

Exactly two years before the start of the bridge Tass says the most interesting facts about the "construction of the century".

1. Thousands of years THOUGHT

Thoughts connect Kerch and Taman - almost a thousand years. In 1064, Prince Gleb make the journey across the ice, counted 14,000 yards (30 km). Only here are no technical possibilities to build a bridge from the prince and the inhabitants of ancient Tmutarakan principality was not. they appeared only in the XIX century.

2. BRITISH could not, the Germans did not have time ...

In 1870 he wanted to build a bridge United Kingdom - for a direct rail link with India. But the project seemed expensive.

At the beginning of the XX century, the construction of the bridge planned to Nicholas II, but plan to change the First World War.

In 1943, the bridge began to construct the German forces for the uninterrupted supply of arms and troops to the Caucasus. But before - Crimea was released and the first bridge across the Kerch Strait by the autumn of 1944 Soviet engineers built it.

3. The first bridge stood SIX MONTHS

There is a legend that it was the first bridge Kerch in February 1945 Joseph Stalin returned to Moscow from the Yalta Conference. Historians, however, say that only part of the motorcade traveled along this path, and Stalin himself went through the Kherson region. Soon the bridge and did not become - in the spring of 1945 it carried a strong ice drift from the Sea of ​​Azov.

4. 60 YEARS OF THE FERRY

In 1954, between the port "Kavkaz" and the Crimea launched a ferry service that operates today.

In the spring of 2015 the ferry was reconstructed, and in the peak season it can carry up to 50,000 passengers and 10,000 cars per day.

5. LONG BRIDGE MOST

The length of the Kerch bridge will be 19 kilometers - 11, 5 of them will pass through the land, including the island of Taman, 7, 5 km - over the sea. The construction will be the longest in Russia, taking away the title from the President of the bridge over the Volga River in Ulyanovsk, whose length is a little less than 13 km.

6. Minesweeper, ecology and archeology AHEAD BUILDERS

Before the construction of 200 hectares of the coast and waters of the Kerch Strait sappers examined. They found about 200 shells of the Great Patriotic War. All of them disposed of at the landfill.

Environmentalists have replaced and relocated to safe places thousands of plants and 117 animals from the Red Book.

Archaeologists discovered during the excavation of more than 3,000 items of ancient times, the Middle Ages and the Bronze Age, and handed them over to the Taman Museum Complex.

7. without fear EARTHQUAKES

In the Kerch Strait, there several tectonic faults and seismic zones. On assurances of scientists, the earthquake of 9-10 are likely to only once every 1,000 years.

But even despite this, the creators of the project made sure that the bridge "bypassed" fault zone. And all construction sites fortified against possible earthquakes and landslides.

8. Thirty-two of the Eiffel Tower into the seabed

On the offshore and onshore sections builders have already installed more than three thousand of the planned 5, 5000, and nearly 200 piles of 595 piers.

On one leg out of 400 tons of steel, and so on all the supports will spend so much iron that it they could build 32 Eiffel Tower.

Bridge piles driven into the ground at a depth of 16 meters on the ground to 94 meters on the sea areas. For comparison - the piles of the bridge in 1944 deepened by only 12 meters.

9 is not a bridge, but a bridge

In fact through the Kerch Strait built two bridges - road and rail, which run parallel to each other.

Trains will be able to transport 14 million passengers a year. As for the road, it will be four-and speed. For that can travel up to 40 thousand cars a day - four times more than today provides ferry service at the height of its features.

10. GATE for ships

To maritime traffic in the construction of the bridge provided archways. Their width - 227 meters, height - 35 meters.

Mount spans began this summer in a special area in Kerch. All work will be completed during the year and in August 2017 to deliver the finished design to the installation site. The two arches, and to train, and road bridge, after assembly will weigh 10,000 tons.

11. RUSSIA BUILDS ALL

At the construction site of the bridge involved 3,500 engineers and workers from two dozen Russian regions. Among them - experienced professionals who build objects of the APEC summit in Vladivostok, the Universiade in Kazan, the Sochi Olympics.

December 18, 2018 the bridge will pass the first car, and December 1, 2019 - the first train.