The ceremonial commissioning of the steel Danube bridge between Ruse and Gyurghevo is perhaps the biggest event for 1954. His place in the history of the Balkans seems to become more and more significant due to the distance of time - for seven decades he provided Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey with a connection not only with Romania, but also with the whole of Northern Europe, BNR recalls.
The Danube bridge was built between the cities of Ruse (Bulgaria) and Giurgiu (Romania) at river kilometer 488.7. Its length is 2.8 km, it passes at a height of 30 meters above the water. It is built on 2 levels – for trains and cars. The middle section (85 m long) can be lifted and large ships can pass through. The bridge is one of two bridges over the Danube River along the border between Bulgaria and Romania, which is about 500 km long.
The architecture of the bridge is by architect Georgi Ovcharov, and the artistic layout (the portals on the Bulgarian and Romanian shores, as well as the eagle heads along its length) is the work of Ukrainian sculptor Mykhailo Parashchuk.
It was officially opened for operation on June 20, 1954, and for its time it was the largest combined bridge (with a railway line and for car traffic) in Europe. It was built in 2.5 years by Bulgaria and Romania in cooperation with the then Soviet Union.
A bit of history – a hundred years after the New Era, the Romans built the first massive bridge over the river near Rousse.
Other similar facilities were built later. Studies for a new bridge are also being done around the Crimean War. In 1948, a “agreement on friendship, cooperation and mutual assistance” was signed between the socialist republics of Bulgaria and Romania. At the meeting, a decision was made to build a bridge, but between other settlements on both sides of the Danube.
The start of the project was given at the end of 1951. The cities of Ruse and Gyurghevo were chosen. For the so-called Eastern Bloc is an undertaking of extremely great geopolitical and strategic importance. The bridge was named “Object 889”, it was designed and built by Soviet specialists. At the same time – in complete secrecy. In addition to Bulgaria and Romania, representatives of the “fraternal socialist countries” – Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary. In the “Gold Fund” the speeches of the three most important participants in the celebration in 1954 have been preserved at the BNR. The first to speak was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the NRB, Valko Chervenkov.
„This majestic bridge is the fruit of the fraternal economic cooperation between the USSR and the socialist countries. He is a new, bright embodiment of their peace-loving policy, of the strong friendship between them and the selfless and irreplaceable help that the Soviet Union gives them. The Danube bridge will connect Bulgaria and Romania even more closely, but it is also a new element of cohesion between all the people's democratic countries that took part in its construction. It will increase and facilitate the exchange of goods, road and rail passenger movement. In this sense, it has international significance. It was built according to the last word of Soviet science and practice in bridge construction. Allow me to express my warm gratitude to the Government and all those working in the NRB for the fact that the Soviet Union gave some of its greatest specialists in this field. And the Hungarian, Czechoslovak and Polish People's Democratic Republics supplied it with valuable machines, equipment and metal structures. Six years ago, the great son of our people, Georgi Dimitrov, declared in Bucharest: “We have decided to build an iron bridge over the Danube and we will do it. But both before and after its construction, we must build, through work, art, culture and friendship, a living bridge in the souls and hearts of the two peoples. A bridge that no one will be able to destroy.”
After the Bulgarian chairman of the Council of Ministers, the floor was given to his Romanian colleague Gheorghe Georgiou-Dezh. The words socialism, Soviet Union, socialist cooperation, brotherhood, etc. are also present in his speech. He also spoke about the contribution of the previous leader of Bulgaria, Georgi Dimitrov.
Protocol phrases, characteristic of the socialist vocabulary, were also pronounced by Leonid Saprikin – head of “Object 889”. But as a professional who has taken the large-scale construction work to heart, he backs up his words with impressive technical data. And three times he mentions the short time frame in which the bridge was built. According to experts, this is a real achievement even for modern bridge construction methods.
„Today, June 20, 1954 is a significant day – he says. – We are putting into operation a double-decker bridge on which cars and trains can move at the same time. It is the first bridge between two neighboring democratic countries. Built by the hands of Bulgarian and Romanian workers, it is the largest bridge in Europe. It is not for nothing that they call this first iron highway over the Danube the “bridge of friendship and peace”. There is an opportunity for unhindered movement with all types of transport, for the transfer of all kinds of cargo. It was built in two years and seven months, a full seven months ahead of schedule. This became possible thanks to the applied flow-speed methods and extensive mechanization. Thanks to the great patriotic upsurge and socialist attitude to work, the cost of construction was reduced by more than 16 million rubles. After conducting dynamic and static tests, the commission found that the bridge meets all modern requirements. A large-scale work has been done here. Tens of thousands of cubic meters of concrete were poured. Two large stations were built on the Bulgarian and Romanian coasts, as well as complexes of related facilities.“
A curious fact from the history of the Danube Bridge, which confirms the words of Leonid Saprikin – after commissioning, the bridge was repaired only in 1999, with renovation works continuing until 2004.