In the 19th century, the Russian northern capital, St. Petersburg, experienced difficulties in transport between the central urban left-bank districts and Vyborgsky District on the right bank of the Neva. The floating bridges, periodically destroyed by ice, could not cope with the task, in the end the city duma decided to build a bridge to connect the Liteiny Prospekt to the Vyborg side. The project promised to be difficult, since the distance between the banks of the Neva was 400 meters, and its depth reached 24 meters.
In 1871, a contest was announced for the best project called "Foundry Bridge". The future bridge received its name due to the fact that it was to be a continuation of the Liteiny Prospekt. Within two years, various firms-contractors have submitted about twenty projects. The first prize place was taken by the British bridge construction company Westminster, which offered a relatively inexpensive bridge of four spans, an arch structure, with two divider sections. The engineers of the firm offered to build the Foundry Bridge, the divorce of which was carried out according to the simplest scheme - a rotary one. Initially, there was no objection to this project, but a year and a half later the Ministry of Railways made a number of comments on the design of the bridge supports, and also submitted its doubts about the reliability of the calculations of the program's financial security.
The Westminster project was revised and rejected, and the Foundry Bridge was handed over to engineer Colonel AE Struve. Under the contract, the construction of the bridge was determined by a four-year period. The contract was signed, although some items raised questions from government officials. Struve insisted on the purchase of metal structures in England, although Russian iron was not worse, and in some respects even better than English. However, it was already impossible to postpone the construction of the bridge, so in August 1875 laid the first stone - Foundry Bridge was granted a start in life. The builders immediately faced serious problems. Underwater layers of soil in this part of the Neva were completely unsuitable for the installation of supports, clay masses did not hold a stone, and the foundation floated.
The primer of acceptable hardness was ten meters deeper, but such an unthinkable amount of material for a foundation of thirty meters deep would not have survived any estimates. Therefore, it was decided to withdraw the first few tiers on the principle of a caisson - a hollow structure of metal sheets welded into a sealed sphere or cylinder. However, with the caissons, too, everything was not going smoothly, the bottom of the river was literally filled with huge boulders and sunken ships. To install the caisson at the right depth, it was necessary to clear a bed for him, and it was a hellish job. The workers perished on the installation of the bridge's supports daily by dozens. In the end, a few caissons were somehow installed, after which work began on loading them with stones. The cost of the bridge increased by 1.5 times due to incredible technical difficulties. Nevertheless, the construction gradually entered into some kind of rhythm, and soon it was possible to see some results. Five arched spans were raised, the sixth served as a drawbridge of the bridge. In September 1879 the construction was completed with a two-month delay, and AE Struve was granted the rank of Major-General.
Today the divorce of the Foundry Bridge is a favorite sight of Petersburgers and guests of the northern capital.