Pylons of the bridge to Russian Island. The “Miracle Bridge” in Vladivostok could collapse at any moment
In Vladivostok, the bridge connecting the mainland with Russky Island has sagged and become deformed. Drivers were the first to notice the problem on the new bridge on Wednesday. Look for damage on high altitude, especially from a passing car, is not easy, but the townspeople managed to do it before the specialists. One of the drivers, moving to Russky Island, in particular, saw that the second cable stay from the beginning of the bridge and the fourth from the left sagged and took on a wave-like shape.
Checking this information, a correspondent for the publication vl.ru went to the bridge and counted that nine red cables have a wave-like shape.
The regional administration stated that the bridge to Russky Island is operating normally, changes in the outer shell of the cable stays do not affect the quality and safety of the bridge’s operation, and that the company involved in the maintenance of the bridge, JSC USK MOST, is continuously monitoring it. According to the company’s specialists, sagging of the cables is associated with weather conditions and is a normal situation - this happens often, and “bridge builders know about it.”
USK MOST said on Thursday that the bridge's design was affected by the weather. “The deformation of the outer shell of the cable stays of the Russian Bridge occurred as a result of changes in temperature conditions environment,” said the head of the company’s press service, Alexey Skorobogatko. “However, this absolutely does not affect the reliability, durability and safety of operation of the bridge crossing. Due to temperature changes and free space, the deformation of the shell can be observed with the naked eye, but it only performs a protective and decorative function.”
The cable-stayed bridge to Russky Island was built for the APEC summit in 2012 and is a world record holder for the length of the central span, which was 1104 m, and the height of the pylons - 324 m. 32.5 billion rubles were spent on its construction.
The cable stays were manufactured and supplied for the construction of the bridge by the French company Freyssinet (Freyssinet International and Company), which ultimately acted as a consultant to the Russian contractor. In January of this year, a disappearance during bridge construction was reported. large quantity scrap metal worth 96 million rubles.
In the State Enterprise "Federal Administration" highways « Far East(FKU Dalupravtodor) stated: “No violations were detected in the operation of the cable-stayed system on the bridge across the Eastern Bosphorus Strait in Vladivostok.” “In accordance with the contract for the maintenance of the bridge crossing, the cable-stayed system as part of other structures of the bridge crossing is subject to daily inspection,” says the message received by the editors of Gazeta.Ru. — The light wavy surface of the shells of cable stays No. 2 and No. 6 is their design feature and does not affect the strength, reliability and durability of the cable stays, as well as other bridge crossing structures. The entire cable-stayed system was put into operation without any comments or deviations from the requirements of the design documentation.”
General designer of the entire facility, General Director of JSC Giprostroymost Institute St. Petersburg Igor Kolyushev previously on a specialized resource Rosmost described similar movements of the cables:
“Fatigue phenomena in the stiffening beam and cable stays have not been sufficiently studied. Possible winds combined with live loads can affect the bridge design in unpredictable ways.”
Bridge building experts who built a nearby bridge in Vladivostok believe that sagging cable stays are unlikely to pose a risk of disaster. “A bridge is a flexible structure, the span can walk, and the tension of the cables can change, so some visible change in the shape of the cables may not be something dangerous,” Alexander, deputy director for technical issues at the company, told Gazeta.Ru. TMK, which built another cable-stayed bridge in Vladivostok. “The condition of the cables is strictly monitored by sensors of the monitoring system, so if something really out of the ordinary had happened, the bridge would have already been closed and specialists would have been working to fix the problem.”
However, the bridge builder added that nothing similar has happened to the neighboring bridge across the Golden Horn Bay, also built for the APEC summit. “In general, if any guy sag, they will simply tighten it,” Lebedev reassured.
Traffic on the bridge to Russky Island was officially opened by the Prime Minister on July 2, but a few days after the head of government left, the bridge was closed and reopened only in August. However, after just a few weeks, on August 25, traffic was again closed to ordinary motorists due to preparations for the summit and the event itself.
The construction of the bridge to Russky Island is carried out within the framework of the subprogram “Development of the city of Vladivostok as a center of international cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region.”
The bridge to Russky Island will be one of the largest cable-stayed bridges in the world, the central span of which, 1104 m long, will become a record in world bridge building practice.
This bridge will have both the highest pylon and the longest cable stays.
Bridge parameters:
The design of the bridge crossing is determined based on two main factors:
- The shortest distance across the water area at the intersection of the bridge is 1460 meters. The depth of the fairway reaches 50 meters.
- The area where the bridge crossing is being constructed is characterized by difficult climatic conditions: temperature difference from -31 to +37 degrees, storm wind speeds of up to 36 m/s, storm wave heights of up to 6 meters; in winter, ice formation up to 70 centimeters thick is observed.
Construction of a reinforced concrete pylon
|
Under each of the two 320-meter pylons of the bridge, 120 bored piles are installed (on the M-7 pylon from the Russky Island side - with a non-removable metal shell). The pylons are concreted using original self-climbing formwork in 4.5 meter claws. A crane is used on the first three grips, then the formwork begins to move independently due to the hydraulic movement of the modular elements. The bridge pylons are A-shaped, so standard formwork cannot be used. A separate kit is installed for each pylon. The transition between section types is made at the level of jumpers at levels of 66.26 and 191.48 meters. The use of self-climbing formwork makes it possible to improve the quality and reduce the construction time of monolithic reinforced concrete structures by one and a half times.
At an altitude of 189 m, the zone for attaching the cables begins. The installation of cable-stayed pairs and concreting of the pylon body will take place simultaneously. This technological solution dramatically reduces construction time.
|
Installation of the central span
The design of the span has an aerodynamic cross-section to absorb loads from squally winds. The cross-sectional configuration of the span was determined based on aerodynamic calculations and optimized based on the results of experimental processing of a scale model at the detailed design stage.
Welded assembly joints are used for longitudinal and transverse joints between the cover sheet of the orthotropic slab and the lower ribbed slab. For the joints of the vertical walls of the blocks, longitudinal ribs, transverse beams and diaphragms, assembly connections with high-strength bolts are used.
Large prefabricated sections for installation of the central span structure in specially designated “windows” are delivered by barges to the assembly site and lifted by crane to the 76-meter mark. Here, multi-ton elements are joined and cables are attached to them.
Cable-stayed system
The cable-stayed system takes on all static and dynamic loads; the very existence of the bridge depends on them. The cable stays are maximally protected from natural elements and other adverse influences and are designed for the entire service life of the bridge.
High strength, endurance, and corrosion resistance of the cable stays ensure a design service life of at least 100 years.
For the central span, an improved, so-called “compact” PSS system with a more dense placement of strands in the shell was used. The compact configuration of the cables using a smaller diameter shell helps reduce the wind load by 25-30%. At the same time, the cost of materials for the pylon, stiffening beam and foundations is reduced by 35-40%.
PSS cables consist of parallel strands with a diameter of 15.7 mm, each of which consists of 7 galvanized wires. The shrouds include from 13 to 85 strands (strands). The length of the shortest cable is 135.771 m, the longest is 579.83 m. The protective shell of the cable is made of high-density polyethylene HDPE and has the following properties:
- resistance to ultraviolet rays;
- resistance to environmental influences in the climatic conditions of Vladivostok (temperature range from -40C to +40C).
A major scandal that risks escalating into corruption is breaking out in Vladivostok. There, because of the rain, a bridge literally crumbled, which is a section of the road for the construction of which 29 billion budget rubles were allocated. According to local residents, the rain was quite ordinary - “medium intensity”, which means the bridge collapsed due to a construction defect. The reasons for such a rapid destruction of a large infrastructure facility built for the APEC summit have yet to be established, but now we can assume that the matter is most likely due to the carelessness of the general contractor, corruption and disregard of officials, as was the case with the notorious “dancing bridge” In Volgograd.
"Just a light rain"
As it turned out, the soil under the newly built section of the highway had started to creep. During the day, the soil under the road continued to shift downward, and this may continue in the event of rain expected in Vladivostok this coming weekend.
As a result, several tons of soil buried the garages with cars and, presumably, one boat inside: the road runs almost along the shore of Patroclus Bay.
“When I was standing there, I actually heard the wire breaking and the stones crunching,” a local resident writes about the situation on an online forum. - Creepy and scary. They forbade the children to go to the sea.”
“But it was just light rain of medium intensity for two days,” another eyewitness reports.
Local deputies drew attention to the situation with the highway. “I was at the site of the landslide,” City Duma deputy Alexander Yurtaev told PrimaMedia. - My point of view: the builders tried to make the wall more vertical because of the garages below. The route itself is straight, there are almost no storms on it, and it turns out that the entire flow of water flows directly towards the gabion mesh. And it was still light rain. What if an ordinary coastal typhoon charges? The asphalt had to be laid with a slight slope in the opposite direction so that the water would drain away. And the slope itself should have been planted with grass and turf to support the stone laying. This road actually cut off our access to the beach. But the road could have been built differently, through Sakhalinskaya, and then the recreation area of the microdistrict would have been preserved. Unfortunately, the situation has become emergency. Now, in order to remove the consequences, we will have to remove more than 40 meters of asphalt, since there is emptiness underneath, and do everything all over again.”
Local residents sent a collective letter to the governor of the region, Vladimir Miklushevsky, since, in their opinion, the construction of the road practically destroyed the beach, which turned into a rocky desert.
The retaining wall was installed directly on the garage
Representatives of the general contractor who built this section of the road, CJSC Pacific Bridge Construction Company (TMK), stated that the eight-kilometer section of the route where the soil collapse occurred was supposed to be put into operation only on July 1, but the cars of citizens could move along it, since it “It was convenient for them, but everyone turned a blind eye to it.”
Currently, traffic along the unfinished section of the highway is blocked by piles of soil piled up after the incident. The asphalt is covered with large faults and cracks over several tens of meters. Use this part of the road local residents now they are afraid. At the same time, TMK press secretary Olga Zarubina assured the Gazeta.ru portal that the incident will not affect the timing of putting the route into operation.
As a local resident named Alexey told reporters, the landslide could have been caused by the fact that builders began installing gabions of a retaining wall directly on the roof of his garage. According to the man, he warned the foreman that the garages were 40 years old and might not hold up. However, the builders did not pay attention to his remark.
ZAO TMK stated that a special commission is investigating the causes of the landslide and they will be named later. It is clear that one of the main reasons for the incident was the rains that continued in Vladivostok since June 9.
“The soil in the first few months after the construction of the road is very unstable and is susceptible to crumbling when abundantly moistened,” Oleg Skvortsov, president of the association of road research organizations, commented on the situation. - When the soil is overgrown with grass and stabilized, it is difficult to move the soil mass. It is difficult to say why the accident occurred. Both the designers and the builders could have made a mistake, but here we need to deal with the situation on the spot.”
It is still unknown who will compensate for material damage to garage owners and whether they will compensate them at all. According to unofficial information, the garages were located on a slope under the road illegally, so local residents can only count on payments for cars buried underground.
The route Novy village - De Vries Peninsula - Sedanka - Patroclus Bay, 42 km long, should connect Vladivostok airport and the bridge to Russky Island. According to the builders, due to the fact that the road will be of “continuous traffic,” that is, without traffic lights and ground pedestrian crossings, the travel time from the airport to the island, which always took at least an hour and a half, will be reduced to 20 minutes. The highway was planned to be put into operation in 2011, but the timing was revised. 29 billion rubles were allocated from the budget for the construction of the facility.
Everybody dance
Let us note that last year a scandal erupted around another bridge - in Volgograd. It took 13 years to build, the facility cost the budget 12.3 billion rubles. The bridge was opened to traffic in October 2009, and in May the following year, strong vibrations began to be observed on the bridge, due to which local residents dubbed it “dancing”. Traffic in the area was blocked.
During the investigation into the reasons for the fluctuations, it turned out that the cause of what happened was corruption: violations of 152 million rubles were identified, and the project turned out to be 1.5 billion rubles more expensive than its true cost. Thus, during the control event it was established that the administration Volgograd region a significant increase in costs for the resettlement of citizens from the construction zone was allowed. The share of such expenses in the estimated cost of construction increased from 2.9% to 9.1% and exceeded 1.1 billion rubles.
Last November, it was reported that experts had strengthened the “dancing bridge” with counterweights to dampen vibrations. The cost of the work amounted to 112 million rubles.
“We can now guarantee the safety of traffic on the bridge. We are now confident that the bridge will never “dance” again, as it did on May 20 last year,” the then governor of the region, Anatoly Brovko, told reporters.
Based on materials:
The bridge to Russky was called a “useless $1 billion structure”
The bridge to Russky Island in Vladivostok has been criticized since the very beginning of construction. Some experts questioned the feasibility of such grandiose project. Another fly in the ointment was added by Alexey Mikhailov, an analyst at the Center for Economic and Political Research (EPIcenter).
WHY IS IT NEEDED?
The cable-stayed bridge, like its Golden “brother”, connecting the city center with Cape Churkin to Russky Island was built as part of Vladivostok’s preparation for the APEC summit. The building is unique. After all, at the Russian Bridge - and this is his official name- the world's largest span among cable-stayed bridges, 1104 meters long, and the first pylons in height - 324 m.
Economist Alexey Mikhailov cites other impressive figures: the cost of the structure is about $1 billion. The same amount was spent on the access road to the airport and the city.
This cable-stayed bridge is actually very beautiful, floating in the air with a central span of more than 1 kilometer at a height of 70 meters, supported by two pylons 324 meters high. He is probably great at engineering solutions. And it will certainly now become a new symbol of Vladivostok. But... why is it needed? - asks the expert.
The analyst’s main argument “against the bridge” is the same as that of many critics of the structure - it has a small carrying capacity, and the population of the island is too small for such costs.
The bridge with a capacity of 50 thousand cars per day leads to the small island of Russky with a population of 5 thousand people. And those mostly poor fishermen living in barracks-type houses do not have cars, says Mikhailov.
In counterbalance to this criticism, the Vladivostok authorities have repeatedly stated that the bridge was built, among other things, for the development of the island, the program of which includes the construction of many large facilities and the creation of infrastructure for 150 thousand people.
BRIDGE “DOES NOT PAY OFF”
What's next for Russky Island? Now there are the same 5 thousand residents left without cars. Honestly, is it really worth spending $2 billion to access beaches by car? Is there no way to get there by ferry? After all, it runs every two hours and even transports cars, it’s not that expensive,” the expert continues.
The development of tourism and the construction of new housing on the island are one thing. But, perhaps, the main argument in favor of the feasibility of the bridge was the Far Eastern Federal University under construction on the same island. After all, it was planned that the united university would become the largest educational institution in the country and even the world. Students from all over the world will come to study there, and the best foreign teachers will teach there. However, the contractor did not have time to complete the FEFU buildings. And the great “relocation plan” failed, and the students remained on the mainland, at least until construction was completed. Nowadays, only nonresident students live on the island, who go to classes in the city every morning.
To all this we can add the island’s absolutely undeveloped road infrastructure. After you leave the bridge, you find yourself on real " Russian roads", having driven along which you need to resort to auto repair services. That’s why most townspeople don’t dare go there. And taxi companies raise prices for trips to the island - up to 1 thousand rubles from the center of Vladivostok.
Alexey Mikhailov compares the Russky Bridge with its “colleague” Golden Gate in San Francisco, USA. Just not in favor of the first one.
They are similar in basic characteristics. But the Golden Gate was built 75 years ago, is a toll gate and actually handles 120 thousand cars a day. This bridge literally makes half a million dollars every day. Is the Russian Bridge free and how much traffic will it actually carry per day now, after the end of the APEC summit? A couple thousand cars? Or maybe a couple hundred? - writes the expert.
However, it is worth noting that neither the bridge builders nor the Primorye authorities share the economist’s opinion.
This will be a comfortable area of Vladivostok, very convenient for living. Children will be able to go to school here, then to university - and will not have to travel anywhere. As for the other territory of the island, it is planned to leave it as a tourist and recreational zone, says the governor of Primorye Vladimir Miklushevsky.- Only the coast will be developed - we are talking about boarding houses and holiday homes. Still, the nature of the island must be preserved as much as possible for posterity.
Take a look at any photograph or tourist brochure: if there is a bridge in a city, it will certainly be there. The bridge is a kind of monument, an architectural decoration of the city, an achievement of its inhabitants. San Francisco - Golden Gate, New York - Brooklyn Bridge, Hong Kong - Stonecutter Bridge, - the director of the branch of JSC USK MOST in Vladivostok expresses his opinion Alexey Baranov.- And one more undeniable advantage, purely practical. By connecting the mainland with Russky Island, the bridge opened up new development prospects. Many cities in Russia, including Vladivostok, suffer from heterogeneity of style: in different periods, under different governments and cultures, they built differently and did not always care about compatibility. And the facade of the city must be properly planned once and for all, only then will it be beautiful. Of course, the city cannot afford to rebuild existing neighborhoods. But in Russky there is a chance to start with a clean slate, ending up with a large and harmoniously built-up area, very promising for development.
BY THE WAY
The issue of building a bridge to Russky Island was raised in the first half of the 20th century. The first project was completed in 1939, the second in the 1960s. However, neither one nor the other was ever implemented. At the beginning of October 2007, NPO Mostovik won the tender to design a bridge crossing to Russky Island. The contractor was JSC USK MOST. Construction of the bridge began in 2008; on July 1, 2012, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev opened working traffic on the bridge, and a month later, on August 1, the bridge was opened for personal transport.
Ten years ago, no one could have even thought that the bridge to Russky Island was not a dream of local science fiction writers, but a near reality. In almost 44 months, Russian builders erected a gigantic structure over the Eastern Bosphorus Strait, which became a record holder for several interrelated indicators. Before this, no one in the world had built bridge pylons of such a height (324 meters), no one had installed cables of such a length (580 meters) or created a main span of 1104 meters. Read about the history associated with one of the new symbols of Vladivostok in the PrimaMedia news agency.
Castles in the air
The first mention of bridges across the Golden Horn and the Eastern Bosphorus dates back to 2007, when a government commission together with the leadership of Primorye (then headed by Sergei Darkin) decided to hold the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Vladivostok in 2012.
It was decided to hold it not on the basis of some VDC "Ocean" or the most fashionable Hyundai hotel at that time, but on Russian Island, where there were not even decent hotels - not a single asphalt road. Getting to the island, according to Vladimir Putin, will be possible via “a bridge, or maybe two.”
It is not surprising that then many local residents took this whole idea as a joke: “You can also say that the bridge goes all the way to Russian Island. And even before 2012. They went crazy there in Moscow,” was the collective opinion about the project that Primorye residents often expressed this.
Meanwhile, the head of the Ministry of Regional Development (there was such a thing) Dmitry Kozak is already announcing that an unprecedented amount of 15 billion rubles has been allocated for the construction of the bridge. This is about a third of the region’s total annual income. The Omsk association Mostovik was entrusted with taking on the ambitious project; the Taiwanese company T.Y.LIN International, which promised to build a bridge to Russky Island for only 10 billion rubles, wanted to compete with it.
"How in general, without having in your hands finished project, can you give an objective assessment of the cost of construction and installation work? - the general director of the Russian enterprise Oleg Shishov was indignant then. - If Taiwanese builders have such a project, a logical question arises: were strong wind loads, high seismic activity, complex geology, low temperatures, possible impact on the supports from the pile-up of ships with a displacement of up to one hundred thousand tons, ice thickness up to eighty centimeters? These are very serious, large loads that entail high costs of materials when constructing long spans. It is necessary to evaluate not only the cost of the bridge, but also the cost of the entire bridge crossing as a whole, including overpasses at the approaches to the bridge, construction of roads as part of the bridge crossing, arrangement and reconstruction of architectural monuments, resettlement of residents of individual houses subject to demolition, and a host of other very important nuances."
As a result, NPO Mostovik developed the project and USK MOST was appointed as the general contractor. The subcontractors were SK Most and the same Mostovik.
The complexity of the task at hand could not be overestimated. Even experienced builders doubted the success of the enterprise. A colleague and competitor of the Omsk association, the general director of the Pacific Bridge Construction Company (TMK), which then took on the construction of a bridge across the Golden Horn, Viktor Grebnev, was sure that this was simply impossible.
“I am determined myself and constantly tell my employees that the bridge across the Golden Horn Bay must be built in time for the APEC Summit. There is no turning back for us, this is our Russian image. It will not be said as a reproach to the builders of the bridge to Russky Island, but to build it by 2012 technologically impossible,” said Viktor Grebnev.
Beginning of construction, the first town. Photo: official website of NPO "Mostovik"
There really were a lot of difficulties. From the very beginning of survey work, builders were faced with the well-known problem of military lands on Russky Island. “Today we have everything ready to begin its construction - the necessary human resources have been concentrated, modern equipment has been prepared. All that remains is to obtain formal permission to begin construction work,” said the governor of the Primorsky Territory, Sergei Darkin, in 2008, when it was time to start.
Although in reality the work was already underway at that time, it was actually illegal. It was only possible to finally deal with the land under the Russian Bridge in 2009.
Construction of the century: piles
It all started with the filling of special sites in the strait, on which the pylons were subsequently located, and with drilling the bottom. Under each bridge pylon it was necessary to make 120 bored piles with a diameter of 2 meters - they are also called bridge roots. The depth of these roots reached 77 meters. Drilling in the open sea is a technology that has not been used in Russia before.
But drilling is only half the battle. It also needs to be concreted, and also on the open sea. Salty water, is not known to combine well with steel and concrete. Therefore, a special mixture and technology for underwater concreting was developed specifically for this task.
Filling the peninsula for pylons. Photo: official website of NPO "Mostovik"
Filling the peninsula for pylons. Photo: official website of NPO "Mostovik"
Filling the peninsula for pylons. Photo: official website of NPO "Mostovik"
Driving the foundation. Photo: official website of NPO "Mostovik"
Under normal conditions, the pouring of piles would occur in stages, as the laid portions of concrete gain the necessary strength. But here it was the other way around. The mixture supply pipe was immersed to the entire depth of the pile (inside the pile pipe) with a small gap for its exit at the bottom. The concrete fell to the bottom and pushed water up. Everything happened in a continuous cycle, and the pillar cover that was in contact with the water was then simply cut off.
It was possible to install and concrete all the piles by the summer of 2009. Meanwhile, workers’ towns have already grown up around the construction sites with their own concrete plants, reinforcement and welding shops, quality control laboratories, plumbing and carpentry workshops, canteens and houses for workers.
Construction of the century: pylons
In August 2009, the construction of bridge overpasses on the island and the mainland began, and in 2010, the creation of the main supports of the entire facility, the world's highest 324-meter pylons, began. Their tasks include not only maintaining the central span, but also resisting adverse weather conditions in the form of storm winds and temperature changes.
Everyone knows that the pylons are hollow inside, but few people know that the thickness of the walls of these giants is not the same at different heights. For the pylons of the Russian Bridge, this value varies from 2 meters near the water to 70 cm at the top. In addition, the design involves changing the angle of inclination of the bridge supports in the area of the lintel.
Bridge supports. Photo: official website of NPO "Mostovik"
Construction of the bridge to Russian. Photo: PrimaMedia news agency
Construction of the bridge to Russian. Photo: PrimaMedia news agency
Construction of the bridge to Russian. Photo: PrimaMedia news agency
Construction of the bridge to Russian. Photo: PrimaMedia news agency
To concrete such a geometrically complex object, it was necessary to constantly change the formwork design. In total, using self-lifting structures (those blue and yellow caps familiar to all local construction observers), workers carried out 72 pouring cycles.
To ensure that the pylons correspond to each other in this almost manual mode of operation, an error of 2 mm of deviation was included. Surveyors constantly checked reference lengths between points.
But at a distance from the target of over 80 meters, it was impossible to achieve the required accuracy using optical methods. To solve this problem, it was necessary to use two satellite navigation systems at once - GLONASS and GPS. Only their combined use made it possible to correctly position all structural elements so that in the end the bridge would converge exactly in the middle of the strait.
By the way, in 2010, Vladivostok was visited by the legendary satirist Mikhail Zhvanetsky, who did not miss the opportunity to wander around the construction site of the summit. Having said a lot of nice words about the growing and developing city, Mikhail Mikhailovich left, and it was decided to consider his visit a “blessing” for the builders for further hard work.
Construction of the century: span
The total length of the metal span of the bridge is 1248 meters, and its weight is 23 thousand tons. The span structure consists of separate sections of an aerodynamic shape. The length and width of each panel are the same: 12 and 26 meters, respectively. But the weight, oddly enough, varies from 185 to 380 tons.
Span section. Photo: official website of NPO "Mostovik"
These panels were created in different cities of Russia, and assembled from spare parts in Vladivostok and Nakhodka. Lighter panels were even immediately joined on the ground to speed up construction.
On May 12, 2011, the first panels of the central span were delivered from Nakhodka by sea. They did all the quality control before shipping. They had to be raised to a height of 70 meters using special lifts and the “Grigorich” diving boat, named after one of the veteran bridge builders.
It was “Grigorich”, with the help of three tugs, that tirelessly transported the next sections to the lifts by water over the next year. The docking of the two sides was initially scheduled for April 11. But due to weather conditions, it was decided to postpone it to the next day, or rather night. When the wind died down and the air temperature stopped fluctuating, "Grigorich" went into the Eastern Bosphorus Strait for the last time with the final section of the flight on board.
A little-known fact, but in order for the last piece to fall into place, the entire bridge had to be pulled in different directions so that the gap between the edges of the panel on each side was 10 cm, and then released so that the bridge itself “pinched” the last section in the middle.
Bridge docking. Photo: Anton Balashov, PrimaMedia news agency
Bridge docking. Photo: Anton Balashov, PrimaMedia news agency
Bridge docking. Photo: Anton Balashov, PrimaMedia news agency
Bridge docking. Photo: Anton Balashov, PrimaMedia news agency
Rumors and predictions
When even skeptics recognized the inevitability of creating a bridge to Russky, many new rumors appeared around it. If earlier experts from various industries and competencies talked about what exactly the builders would not have time to do before the opening of the summit and which element of the bridge would fly into the waters of the strait first, now it was fashionable to give indicative prices for travel from the continent to the island.
Citizens' fears that they would be charged money for using the bridges reached such a level that it was not anyone but First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov who had to refute them. “Of course, free. Someone launched a duck. It’s an ordinary duck,” he said, answering a direct question from a journalist about tolls on bridges. “That’s why they are being built - to make it convenient for citizens to move from different parts of the city,” added the First Deputy Prime Minister.
But the famous Russian astrologer Alexander Rempel in 2011, after checking with the stars, predicted a delay in the delivery time for both bridges.
“According to my calculations, the bridges will be completed after the summit. Although the ceremonial cutting of the ribbon and the report on completion may be much earlier. This is customary here and, most likely, it will be so about two to three months before the opening of the summit. But I I'm talking about the readiness of bridges for safe operation.The bridge across the Golden Horn - the Silver Dragon Bridge - must be built before February 11, 2013. And the bridge to Russky Island, which Chinese feng shui experts called 150 years ago the Tail of the White Tiger, must be built until January 12, 2013. Of course, it is very difficult to indicate the exact day of completion of construction, and the indicated dates have more symbolic than practical meaning, and there may be fluctuations of several weeks in one direction or another, but still, this is 2013,” - Rempel assured.
Roofers
The pylons, unique in their height, began to attract the attention of extreme sports enthusiasts. Towards the end of construction, a group of roofers put the construction site security guards in an awkward position, playing catch-up with them until the FSB officers took the hooligans out.
Roofers at the top. Photo: Vitaly Raskalov
The violators later posted a photo report of their adventures on the Internet. " Lately I’ve completely stopped pleasing you with interesting and unusual posts; due to work, I practically don’t go anywhere. But here on May holidays I was lucky enough to fly to Vladivostok and create a real commotion there, climbing without insurance or permission to the top of the 220- and 350-meter pylons of the bridges that are being built across the Zolotoy Rog Bay and onto Russky Island,” wrote roofer Vitaly Raskalov.
He also admitted that they promised the FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs not to appear on the bridges anymore. And here is the deputy general director ZAO TMK Alexander Yakovlev condemned extreme sportsmen.
“It’s just a terrible incident. After all, if something had happened to the guys, all the responsibility would have fallen on the builders. There are enough security guards on the bridges, but how can you keep track of those who deliberately decided to do this. With their behavior, troublemakers cause a lot of trouble for the builders themselves, after all, the construction is not finished yet,” Yakovlev commented on the incident.
Opening of the bridge
In 2012, just in time for Vladivostok’s birthday, the bridge to Russian Island opened to the traffic of construction equipment. For the sake of such an event, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev also came to the capital of Primorye, who thanked the builders for their dedicated work
“This bridge will serve a huge number of people. Both residents of the Primorsky Territory, and those who come here from other regions of our country, or foreigners. And it will simply be a very beautiful structure, embodying the genius of engineering and architectural thought,” the prime minister said.
Before opening it to everyone, the bridge was specially checked by columns of simultaneously braking trucks. The design passed the test with loaded dump trucks “excellent”.
And by evening it was quite difficult to get through, because on the sides of the bridge crossing there were hundreds of cars standing there who wanted to feel the bridge to Russky Island with their own hands and feet, as if they didn’t believe their eyes. Traffic police officers, by the way, did not fine the violators on the first day, but warned that this would not be allowed in the future.
Today, the bridge to Russky Island has become something taken for granted for Vladivostok residents, immanently inherent in the city. engineering structure. It is now simply impossible to imagine Vladivostok without this giant. About a dozen walk along it regular buses, and lovers wild holiday every weekend they travel along it to the island beaches. If you believe the promises of the builders, then the service life of the Russian Bridge is 100-120 years, that is, a whole century. So technically it could be called "eternal".
