Location: Nevsky Prospect
Anichkov Bridge is a road stone arch bridge across the Fontanka River
in the Central District of St. Petersburg, connecting Spassky and
Bezymyanny Islands. One of the most famous bridges in St. Petersburg.
The bridge is famous for the sculptural groups "The Taming of the Horse
by Man", created by the sculptor P. K. Klodt and which have become one
of the symbols of the city. Despite its small size, Anichkov Bridge is
one of the main structures of the architectural ensemble of Nevsky
Prospekt. In 2001, it was included in the list of objects of cultural
heritage of Russia of federal significance, is under state protection.
The first wooden bridge was built in 1716. During the 18th century,
the bridge was repeatedly rebuilt in wood. In 1784-1785, a three-span
stone bridge with towers was built according to a standard design for
bridges across the Fontanka. In 1841, according to the project of
engineers I.F. Buttats and A.Kh. Raeder, the existing arched three-span
bridge was built. The bridge was overhauled in 1906-1908 and 2007-2008.
Located along the axis of Nevsky Prospekt. Near the bridge are the
Anichkov Palace, the Beloselsky-Belozersky Palace, the Fountain House.
Upstream is the Belinsky bridge, below is the Lomonosov bridge.
The name of the bridge comes from the Anichkova Sloboda adjoining it,
built in the time of Peter the Great by a working battalion, led by
engineer-lieutenant colonel of the Astrakhan infantry regiment M. S.
Anichkov. He was also the builder of the first Anichkov bridge.
Initially, by imperial decree of 1739, the bridge was named Nevsky.
However, this name did not take root, and already in 1747 the modern
name appeared in the Saint Petersburg Vedomosti.
In the 19th and
early 20th centuries, the spelling Anichkin Most was often encountered.
In 1913, one of the descendants of M. S. Anichkov, after whom the bridge
is named, addressed the city government with a letter in which he
objected to such a name on the full house of the bridge. After making
inquiries, the city government turned to the city council, where the
name of the bridge was restored.
Until 1712-1714, the Fontanka was called Erik or
Nameless Erik. The swamp river formed islands and backwaters in its
course. The Nevsky Prospekt being laid was one of the important routes
of the new capital, and at the intersection of the two routes it was
necessary to arrange a permanent crossing. In 1715, Peter I issued a
decree: "Beyond the Bolshaya Neva on the Fountain River, in the future,
make a bridge." By May 1716, the work was completed and a wooden beam
multi-span bridge on pile supports was built across the Fontanka,
blocking both the channel itself and the swampy floodplain. The bridge
was quite long, since the Fontanka itself was then an impressive water
barrier and had a width of about 200 m. Some researchers estimate the
length of the bridge at 150 m. The width of the bridge was only about
6.5 m. In the span, special lifting shields were arranged, which were
removed and then returned to their place manually. Originally, the
bridge was located just upstream of the river.
The bridge was
built by the forces of the engineering battalion, commanded by
engineer-lieutenant colonel Mikhail Anichkov. Anichkov's battalion was
located on the banks of the Fontanka in an old Finnish village,
nicknamed since then "Anichkova Sloboda".
Despite the fact that
the drawings of that bridge have not been preserved, it is known that it
was one of those wooden bridges that were massively built at that time,
and therefore, most likely, its structures were upholstered with boards
and painted like stone rustications in order to give the structure a
“representative " view.
In 1721, the bridge was rebuilt to the
design of the Dutch engineer H. van Boles with the participation of the
architect Domenico Trezzini. Due to the lack of contractors, the work
was carried out in an economic way: the bridge was built by prisoners.
The crossing was expanded, the bridge became eighteen-span with a
lifting span for the passage of small ships and barges. The bridge was
raised manually using a wooden lever device. In 1723, the wooden
railings of the Anichkov Bridge were painted red. The next repair of the
bridge was in 1726.
In 1732, a triumphal arch was erected next to
the bridge, designed by architects D. Trezzini and M. G. Zemtsov, in
honor of the accession to the throne of Empress Anna Ioannovna. In 1741,
the arch was restored to meet the new Empress, Elizabeth Petrovna, and
in 1751 it was dismantled.
In 1737 the bridge was expanded to the
width of Nevsky Prospekt. In 1741, it was strengthened to allow 14
elephants to pass through it - an Indian gift to the Russian Empress
from the Persian Shah. In 1744, the middle of the bridge was made
lifting, adjustable iron mechanisms were made at the Sestroretsk
factories. In 1749, the architect Semyon Volkov built a new wooden
bridge, which did not differ much from the typical bridges of that time.
The wooden beams of the middle spans of the bridge rested on log rows
filled with stone, and a long overpass on wooden piles crossed the
marshy floodplain of the right bank of the Fontanka. The bridge did not
have a draw span; this is apparently due to the fact that in this part
of the Fontanka was not navigable. At the entrance to the bridge,
lanterns were installed on tall wooden poles. During the reconstruction,
eighteen arched spans were preserved, processed under stone (granite)
rustication. The fence of the bridge was a row of wooden balusters
standing between pedestals topped with vases or balls.
In the
18th century, the Fontanka was the border of the city, so the bridge
served as a kind of checkpoint. There was an outpost near the bridge,
where they checked the passports of those entering the city.
In the middle of the 18th century, the city
overstepped its natural boundary and began to build up on the territory
of the former suburbs. This explains the extensive activity of the
Commission on the stone structure of St. Petersburg and Moscow to
regulate small rivers and canals, according to the projects of which,
from 1780 to 1789, work was carried out to equip the Fontanka. The work
was carried out by a specially established commission, which until 1783
was headed by General F. W. Bauer. As part of these works, stone
embankments with slopes to the water were erected, as well as seven
stone bridges of the same type with medium wooden drawbridges and towers
on bulls. Various sources name the engineers F. Bauer (Baur), I. K.
Gerard, P. K. Sukhtelen, K. F. Moderakh, architects Yu. M. Felten and V.
I. Bazhenov as the authors of the bridge project. Most sources prefer
the French engineer J. R. Perrone, but there is no documentary evidence
for this. Anichkov Bridge was rebuilt in the period 1783-1785.
Since that time, only two such bridges have survived - the Lomonosov
Bridge and the Staro-Kalinkin Bridge (rebuilt, the proportions have been
changed), by their appearance one can judge the architecture of the
Anichkov Bridge of that time. The side spans of the bridge were the same
in size and were covered with box stone vaults, the middle span was made
of wood and opened to let small ships and barges through. Between the
four granite tower superstructures, which rested on river supports,
heavy chains were stretched, which served to lift the canvases of the
adjustable part. Subsequently, when the Fontanka became very shallow and
no ships except baroques passed through it, the middle span was made
fixed.
The bridge was fenced with a stone parapet, on the
adjustable part - a light metal grate. In the first half of the 19th
century, the parapets were replaced with cast-iron gratings with stone
pedestals, repeating the fence of the embankment. At the entrances to
the bridge, stone obelisks with oval lanterns on brackets were
installed.
In 1832, at the suggestion of engineer V. Guryev, the
cobblestone pavements on Nevsky Prospekt, including the Anichkov Bridge,
were replaced with end blocks made of wooden hexagonal checkers.
In 1839, a decision was made to rebuild the bridge,
since its narrow roadway made it difficult for the increased traffic
along Nevsky Prospekt. The project was drawn up by major engineer I. F.
Buttats with the participation of engineer A. H. Reder. In December
1840, the project was approved by Nicholas I.
A special committee
was set up to oversee the construction, headed by Lieutenant General A.
D. Gotman. The work was carried out by the contractor M. Pimenov under
the guidance of engineers N. Dershau and A. Sobolev. The Anichkov Bridge
was rebuilt in record time: on May 22, 1841, the first stone of the new
bridge was laid, and the arches were erected four and a half months
later. At the beginning of November, the railings were installed, and
soon the granite pedestals for the statues were completed. The bridge
was opened to traffic on November 20, 1841. The total cost of
construction amounted to 195,294 rubles.
The old narrow bridge
was dismantled and a three-span stone bridge was built in its place,
covered with brick vaults, outlined along a gentle circular curve. The
bridge supports and spans were lined with pink granite. The cast-iron
fence with bas-reliefs of seahorses and mermaids was made by architect
A.P. Bryullov based on the lattice created by architect Karl Schinkel
for the Palace Bridge in Berlin. The newspaper "Northern Bee" on
November 5 (17), 1841 reported that the cast-iron grate was cast
"according to the pattern of the famous Berlin architect Schinkel"
The vaults were supposed to be decorated with overlaid bronze
details, bronze vases were placed above each of the bulls, and
equestrian groups were placed on the coastal abutments. During the
construction process, overhead decorations and vases were abandoned.
In 1860, a horse-drawn line was laid across the bridge, going from
Znamenskaya Square to the Admiralty. The bridge was repaired in 1887.
On July 23, 1893, due to a strong gas leak from the main pipes
located on the bridge, gas ignited from a spark of a passing steamer.
The operation of the bridge revealed serious design
flaws, which already in 1843 led to deformations in the vaults. Periodic
studies of 1843, 1847, 1855, 1899 recorded that the destructive process
continues. The commission of experts, which examined the bridge in
October 1902, although it did not recognize the condition of the bridge
as threatening, but limited freight traffic on the bridge weighing no
more than 600 pounds. The reason for the destruction of the bridge was
explained by the fact that the hard granite cladding was not
sufficiently reliably connected with the easily compressible brickwork
of the vaults. Due to the lack of reliable insulation, water got into
the cracks, in places where dissimilar materials came into contact,
destroying the vaults under the influence of natural forces - frost,
winds, etc.
In 1904, the preparatory commission of the city
railways, under the leadership of engineer A.P. Pshenitsky, on behalf of
the City Duma, completed the first project, which provided for the
preservation of the appearance of the bridge with the replacement of
stone vaulted structures with continuous trusses with curved belts.
There was a variant according to which it was planned to attach a
pendant made of thin granite slabs from below and on the sides. The aim
of these projects was to build a bridge without thrust system, but
similar in form to the existing one. In the end, the project was
approved by the City Duma, but its implementation was opposed by the
Academy of Arts, and later by the Construction Committee of the Ministry
of Internal Affairs. In 1906, the project of S. P. Bobrovsky and G. G.
Krivoshein was approved, providing for the preservation of the brick
vaults of the bridge. For this, the exhaust heels were rounded and the
vaults were given a box shape.
The work was carried out without
closing traffic on the bridge and shipping on the Fontanka[58]. In
September-October 1906, the upper side of the bridge was specially
reinforced with riveted iron beams of an I-section, resting on the piers
and abutments of the bridge. On the lower side of the bridge, a
temporary wooden bridge of the strut system was built. On May 1, 1907,
work began on the reconstruction of the lower part of the bridge. Tram
traffic was carried out on the upper side of the bridge. On November 4,
1907, temporary tracks for the tram were laid along the rebuilt half and
traffic was opened along it. On May 10, 1908, work began on the
reconstruction of the second half of the bridge.
To prevent the
opening of the seams in the heels during the restructuring of the second
half of the bridge, a method was used for the first time in Russia,
consisting in the fact that the vault was not brought out to the full
thickness in the heels; the unfilled furrow was held by wooden braces,
and then the filling of the heel furrows with masonry was done
simultaneously with the closing of the vault.
The contractors
were A. Yu. Tami and S. M. Deichman (reconstruction of the permanent
bridge), S. S. Linda (temporary bridge). The bridge was rebuilt by
technician G. I. Zubkov and his assistant, railway engineer P. V.
Shchusev. The bridge was opened to traffic on August 26, 1908. The cost
of rebuilding the bridge was 190,745 rubles.
As a result of the
reconstruction, the bulls and abutments remained the same, the brick
vaults were laid along a box curve with an arrow. All bridge structures
are insulated with rolled lead. During the reconstruction, the narrow
gangways from the bridge, which impeded movement, were replaced by wide
steps, which are a continuation of the sidewalk panels. Old granite was
used for the parapets of the Ligovsky concrete pipes, through which the
waters of the Ligovsky Canal passed under the Moscow Gates Square. In
1938, the old end pavement on Nevsky Prospekt was replaced by asphalt.
During the siege of Leningrad, the bridge was significantly damaged
by artillery raids. Granite parapets and railing sections were damaged.
On the night of November 6, 1942, during a heavy bombardment, a
high-explosive bomb weighing 250 kg hit the Anichkov Bridge. It exploded
near the sidewalk, damaging the tram wires and the lighting network. The
blast wave broke and threw into the Fontanka more than 30 m of cast-iron
grating along with cast-iron pedestals. Traces up to 15 cm deep remained
on the granite pedestals. The grating was cast at the Lentrublit factory
and reinstalled on the bridge in 1944. It was decided to preserve the
traces of shell fragments on the granite of the pedestal as a memory of
the defense of Leningrad. On the initiative of the poet M. A. Dudin, a
bronze plaque was installed on the pedestal of the northwestern
sculptural group in December 1972 (architect V. A. Petrov).
In
the summer of 1951, tram tracks were removed on Nevsky Prospekt,
including on the Anichkov Bridge.
On the night of August 21-22,
1968, 20-year-old Leningrader Boguslavsky made the inscription “Get
Brezhnev out of Czechoslovakia” on three sculptures of horses,
protesting against the entry of troops into Czechoslovakia. Right on the
bridge, Boguslavsky was detained by KGB officers.
In 1991,
granite slabs were replaced on the bridge openings and cast-iron
gratings, which had been absent for a long time, were installed on the
curved sections of the bridge openings. In the mid-1990s, a major
reconstruction of the cast-iron fences of the bridge was carried out.
They were copied and re-cast at the enterprise of the Federal Nuclear
Center in the city of Snezhinsk, Chelyabinsk region.
Overhaul
2007-2008
In 2000, in connection with the loss of bricks from the
upper part of the vault, catching nets were installed, two spans were
closed to navigation. The bridge was overhauled in 2007-2008. NPO Rand
acted as the general designer, Pilon CJSC was the general contractor. In
the course of the work, the most dangerous fragments of arched brickwork
were replaced to a depth of 30 cm (12 m from the upper part of the
bridge and 9 from the lower part) and twenty rows of the vault were laid
in the zone of its support on granite abutments, the brickwork of the
vaults was injected with cement mortar under pressure, installation of
new waterproofing and drainage, replacement of the asphalt concrete
pavement of the roadway, restoration of granite paving slabs and
cast-iron gratings of the railing, restoration of granite elements of
the bridge and adjacent sections of the Fontanka River embankment. The
work was carried out in 3 stages without a complete closure of vehicular
traffic and the passage of ships.
Ten years before the construction of the bridge, the
sculptor P. K. Klodt began to work on a group depicting a rearing horse
and a man restraining him. According to one of the projects of K. I.
Rossi in 1817, the Palace Pier between the Winter Palace and the
Admiralty (on the site of a backfilled canal) on both sides was to be
decorated with sculptural groups of horses with charioteers, and on the
abutments it was supposed to put two figures of guard lions leaning on a
ball with their paws , modeled on the Florentine ones from the Loggia
dei Lanzi (set in 1832). The horse model created by V. I.
Demut-Malinovsky was recognized as unsatisfactory, and in 1832 Emperor
Nicholas I handed over the order to the beginning Klodt. At the same
time, the project of the embankment in front of the building of the
Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg "in the best Greek taste" was
developed in 1831 by the architect K. A. Ton. The architect planned to
use the work of Klodt, but the sculptor asked for such a huge amount
(425 thousand rubles) for casting in bronze that the Council of the
Academy of Arts was forced to refuse and later Egyptian sphinxes were
installed on the pedestals of the embankment.
As a model, Klodt
took the Horses of Marley (1743-1745), the work of the French sculptor
Guillaume Coust (stored in the Louvre in Paris, copies are installed on
the Place de la Concorde at the beginning of the Champs Elysees). Paired
sculptural groups by Kustu date back to ancient originals: images of the
Dioscuri on the Capitol and on the Quirinal Square in Rome. In 1833, the
sculptor P. K. Klodt presented his project: sketches in plaster. But
this project was not carried out. The horses were replaced by copper
lions and porphyry vases.
In the meantime, the reconstruction of
the Anichkov Bridge began and Klodt proposed to install equestrian
groups on the coastal abutments of the bridge. According to the original
design, it was assumed that the bridge would be decorated with four
equestrian groups cast from two models and placed in pairs on the
western and eastern sides of the bridge. As conceived by the sculptor,
four groups, in contrast to the paired Paris ones, should represent four
stages of taming a wild horse: from the unclear outcome of martial arts
to the complete submission of the horse to man. Klodt, who from his
youth was fond of drawing and modeling horses, decided to apply the
"scientific method" to the traditional theme. He "obtained horse heads,
legs, shoulders from slaughterhouses, dissected them with his own hands
and cast them in plaster, in order to then mount them in sculpture." The
naturalistic method was combined in Klodt's work with the romantic moods
of Russian academic classicism, characteristic of that time. In
addition, the silhouettes of the sculptural groups on high pedestals
turned out to be so expressive that they ensured this work an incredible
success.
Refinement and casting of the first group "Horse with a
walking youth" dragged on until 1838. Klodt created the second group
"Young man taking a horse by the bridle" in 1841, having mastered the
skill of a bronze caster. This is evidenced by the inscription on the
plinth: "Sculpted and cast by Baron Peter Klodt in 1841."
At the
suggestion of the author, two sculptural groups were installed on the
western pedestals of the newly built Anichkov Bridge, facing Sadovaya
Street. The sculptures on the eastern side, facing Liteiny Prospekt,
repeated those on the western side, but were temporary, made of plaster
painted to look like bronze. In 1842, Klodt cast two more groups of
bronze horses in bronze, but Emperor Nicholas I presented them directly
from the foundry to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV.
Plaster, bronze-painted sculptures at first outwardly did not differ
from bronze ones. But under the influence of a damp climate, they began
to quickly collapse. “The alabaster figure of a horse turned out to have
a crack, and the alabaster began to fall off in places, which is why the
figure becomes ugly,” the chief police chief reported to the president
of the Academy of Arts. Then the horse's tail fell off, and the chief
police chief again reported on the "ugliness" of the figures and the
danger "for innocent passers-by." On October 9, 1843, the oriental
plaster sculptures were finally replaced with bronze ones, but they did
not stand for long: three years later, Nicholas I presented them to the
King of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II, for the hospitality shown to the
Russian Empress during a trip to Italy, and in April 1846 they were sent
to Naples, and their places in St. Petersburg were taken by plaster
copies. Petersburgers joked that Klodt's horses would never be able to
take their place instead of plaster ones. Finally, in 1851, the bridge
was finally completed. Klodt did not repeat the previous sculptures, but
created two new compositions, as a result, the sculptural groups began
to depict the four stages of conquering a wild horse.
Klodt
conceived the composition of the ensemble so that the viewer "read" the
plot, moving from one group to another. The theme "Taming a wild horse",
according to the author's intention, is not revealed at a time, but
sequentially: from the beginning of taming (on the southeastern abutment
of the bridge) to the complete subordination of the horse to man (on the
northwestern abutment). Klodt's work differs from G. Kustu's Parisian
prototypes in a detailed way of developing the theme, as well as in
style: instead of baroque pathos and expression, the complete harmony of
classicism.
The horse in groups III and IV, unlike those in
groups I and II, is shod. There is a legend that shod horses “come” from
the forges located in the 18th century on Liteiny Prospekt, while
unshoeed ones, on the contrary, face in the direction of Liteiny
Prospekt.
The success of Klodt's equestrian groups was
extraordinary. They were enthusiastically received by both the public
and art criticism. The author was elected an honorary member of the
Berlin and Rome Academies of Arts. The popularity of the sculptures
turned out to be so great that their castings in bronze ended up in the
Belvedere Palace in Peterhof, the Oryol estate in Strelna and in the
Golitsyn estate near Moscow - Kuzminki.
In the 1900s (the year
1899 (MDCCCXCIX) is indicated on the pedestals of the statues) in
Moscow, on the Begovaya Alley near the Moscow Hippodrome, sculptures
were installed by the grandson of P. K. Klodt, the sculptor K. A. Klodt
with the participation of S. M. Volnukhin.
In 1912, the Special
Commission, which included professors L. Benois, Beklemishev and
Chizhov, sculptors Ober and Zaleman, having examined the sculptures of
Klodt, found a number of cracks and fistulas in them, especially
threatening in the human figure of one of the groups.
In October
1941, after the beginning of the blockade of the sculptures of the
bridge, it was decided to bury them in the garden of the Anichkov Palace
in order to protect them from damage. Work on the shelter of equestrian
groups was entrusted to the Dormost department, headed by engineer V.
Makarov. In October-November, they were removed from their pedestals and
transported on special skating rinks to the garden of the Anichkov
Palace. However, only one group was able to sink into the frozen ground
in December. The remaining sculptures were buried in May 1942. The work
was carried out by the Special Construction and Assembly Unit
"Steelconstruction". Each sculpture was smeared with technical vaseline,
wrapped in paper and packed in special boxes. The voids between the
casing and the statues were covered with sand. The sculptures were
lowered into the ground only half their height, so that they would not
be destroyed by groundwater. Earth mounds were piled on top. In 1945,
during one night from June 1 to 2, the sculptures were returned to their
places. For many Leningraders, the return of the horses has become the
personification of a return to peaceful life. The poetess O. F. Bergholz
described this event as follows: “We stood for a long time, the white
night flickered, the statue rose slowly and suddenly at some point
crashed into the pale greenish sky with all its black, stormy, tragic
silhouette! And we all shuddered, even a chill ran through our bodies:
the sculpture appeared in the sky so beautifully, the forty-first year
was so piercingly sharply remembered, and we once again felt the world
so sharply.
In 1973, restoration work was carried out, during
which a protective emulsion was applied to the surface of the sculptures
after removing the oxide film, protecting the bronze from moisture,
sunlight and exhaust gases. At the time of work, the sculptures did not
leave the bridge.
In 2000-2001, the sculptural groups were
restored. The work was carried out in a restoration workshop. The first
pair of horses left the pedestals from the lower side of the bridge on
the night of June 29-30, 2000. The remaining two pairs of sculptures on
the upper side were removed on November 30th. Restoration work was
carried out at the Monumentskulptura plant by Intarsia LLC. An
interesting discovery was that inside the sculptures there is no frame
and additional supports. An ultrasound examination showed that the
thickness of the bronze ranged from 2.5 to 6 cm.
On the night of
May 25-26, 2001, the sculptural groups were returned to the bridge. On
May 26, in the presence of the governor of St. Petersburg, V. A.
Yakovlev, their grand opening took place.
Three-span stone bridge. The superstructure is made
in the form of three box vaults, lined with brick and lined with
granite. The abutments and intermediate supports are stone from rubble
masonry, lined with granite. According to the static system, the bridge
is a three-span hingeless arch. The structural thickness of the vaults
(in the middle span) is 1.225 m. the carriageway occupies 31.9 m. The
length of the bridge is 54.6 m.
The bridge is designed for
vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The carriageway of the bridge includes
8 traffic lanes (4 in each direction). The pavement of the roadway is
asphalt concrete, on the bridge openings and sidewalks there are large
slabs of red granite. Railing railing cast iron artistic casting.
Massive links with mermaids, dolphins and hippocampus seahorses
alternate with each other. Above the intermediate supports, the gratings
are separated by granite pedestals. At the entrances to the bridge, on
four granite pedestals, sculptural groups “The Taming of a Horse by Man”
are installed. On the pedestal of the northwestern sculptural group
there is a bronze plaque "These are traces of one of the 148478 shells
fired by the Nazis on Leningrad in 1941-44." On the same pedestal, a
high-altitude carving “3.0” was preserved, made in 1872-1874 under the
guidance of military surveyor M.A. Savitsky.