Background

The original idea of the bridge between two parks belongs to a Ukrainian architect Vasyl Krychevsky. The bridge was supposed to be a part of Kyiv Government Center project made for architecture contest that was held in 1934, when Kyiv regained its status as the Ukrainian capital. Krychevsky designed the traffic viaduct that was planned to connect the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Council of People's Commissars. He was praised for the viaduct project, but his variant of Government Center was dismissed.^[4]

In the independent Ukraine, the plan of building the bridge was brought back up in 2006. At the meeting of Kyiv Architecture Department on September 6 Heorhii Dukhovnychyi presented the project of a shopping mall with offices and apartments at Volodymyrskyi Descent. The building featured a bridge over the descent, making it similar to Kyiv's central shopping mall Globus that was built in 2002 and had a similar bridge connecting its roof with a park. The project was approved for further development, but it had never ended up anything more than a concept.^[5]

In 2013, Kyiv City State Administration decided that there had to be a bridge between two parks, and it had to be opened in 2014. The contest where Kyiv citizens had to choose the best project took place in May. The contest was international and featured participants from different countries: ipv Delft from Netherlands, Buro Happold from United Kingdom, Asadov Architectural Studio from Russia, Leuppi & Schafroth Architekten from Switzerland, RR Architectes from Spain and two projects from Ukraine, one from Soyuzdorproekt and one from Kyivdormostproekt.^[6] However, the contest failed because of the split of opinion – the citizens chose a project from Netherlands while the contest judges couldn't decide between Spain and Switzerland.^[7]

Final project

Construction process (1 April 2019)

The order to build a new pedestrian and bicycle bridge was issued by Kyiv City State Administration in February of 2017, the project's architect had to be decided in a contest.^[8] In October 2018, Proektni Systemy LTD was chosen as a winner with a project of Andrii Myrhorodskyi, it featured a 210 meters long steel bridge with glass elements.^[9] In November, SpetsAvtoBud had won the tender to build the footbridge, structural steel with ultimate tensile strength of 420 MPa for the construction was fabricated in Azovstal.^[10]

The land preparation began in December 2018. The construction of piers was started in February 2019, the descent was temporarily narrowed with fence to place the cranes. The installation of spans began in March, the final one was installed in April, Klitschko posted a video in Facebook where, following the tradition, the champagne bottle was placed between two spans to be broken during the locking.^[11] In May, the installation of glass panels began as well as repair of park space near the bridge that was cleared up for the construction.

Klitschko brothers test the glass panel by jumping (25 May 2019)

25 May 2019 during the celebration of Day of Kyiv the bridge was opened by Mayor of Kyiv Vitaly Klitschko and his brother Volodymyr, they've jumped on one of the glass panels several times to prove the safety of the structure. Vitaly stated that the construction lasted five months and was finished in time, he said that the workers from Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Lviv, Konotop, Rivne and Kyiv were involved in the construction working 24 hours a day and this work united all the Ukrainians.^[12]

On 13-14 June 2019 the bridge was closed to install the armored glass, apply the markings and clean up the bridge.^[13]

UNESCO buffer zone concerns

When the bridge was under construction, Ukrainian Ministry of Culture sent a letter to Kyiv City State Administration to ask for canceling the project because of Volodymyr hills being an object of UNESCO Word Heritage.^[14] The administration refused to stop the construction stating that its location is outside of the Sofia Cathedral's buffer zone which makes it completely legal.^[15] In March 2019, Mayor of Kyiv Vitali Klitschko alongside director of Historical Heritage Olena Serdiuk had visited the UNESCO headquarters in Paris to present the project of Kyiv's tourist route and to prove the legality of the new bridge.^[16] UNESCO's consulting mission decided to visit Kyiv in April.

Plagiarism accusations

In May 2019, Swiss architect Stefanie M. Schafroth, the co-founder of Leuppi & Schafroth Architekten, stated that Andrii Myrhorodskyi from Proektni Systemy LTD stole their project of the bridge that had won the contest back in 2013 for which they still didn't get their prize money promised by Kyiv. She also added that the cost of Swiss project was $6 million while the Ukrainian one increased it to $10 million.^[17] Andrii Myrhorodskyi called Stefanie's accusations 'complete nonsense' because his company was working on the footbridge project since 2010, making the plagiarism impossible in this situation. Andrii was supported by the transport infrastructure expert Viktor Petruk who made a detailed comparison of two projects in Facebook, where he had shown that while Andrii's project consisted of several strait spans, Stefanie's project had one S-shaped span. Viktor compared the accusations to looking for similarities between the jaguar ornament from Jaguar XK140 and the deer ornament from GAZ-21, where the deer is a Swiss project.^[18]

Corruption accusations

In 2019 the Head of Office of the President Andriy Bohdan stated that he is contacting the law enforcement about the overpricing of the construction of Podilsko-Voskresenskyi, Shuliavskyi and Pedestrian and Cycling bridges and is asking the government to fire Vitaly Klitschko from Kyiv City State Administration. In response Klitschko stated that the bridge had become an element of the political struggle against him. He also called the information about corruption a lie and stated that the takeover of authorities of the city administration oppose the European practice of city municipality.^[19]

18 February 2020 Vitaly Klitschko posted the results of the examinations at his Facebook page. The experts denied the embezzlement of state funds but instead proved the saving of 100 million hryvnias. The total cost of bridge construction and a reconstruction of the park had turned out to be 306 millions while at the stage of planning it was expected to be 420 millions. In his post he once again stated that all the accusations against him is an attempt of Servant of the People party to seize the control over the capital city.^[20]

Vandalism

Viewing platforms fenced for the repair work (22 June 2019)

The first act of vandalism on the bridge in the very first night after its opening. 26 May 2019 two glass panels got cracked, originally it was supposed that they were shot with rifles from underneath^[21] but the Municipal Guard stated that it was a result of a 'group of unknown people actively jumping on it'.^[22] That day Mayor of Kyiv Vitaly Klitschko inspected the damage with experts and said that it is only a protective layer that got damaged and the glass itself is unharmed, he said that the repair work will take only one day.^[23] The next day, during the repair work, the third panel for unknown reasons got cracked, some people noticed the poor quality of reinstallation, there were dirt between the glass layers and gaps between the panels.^[24]

29 July 2019 the glass railings of the bridge got cracked for an unknown reason. Kyiv City State Administration stated that the panel will be dismantled 31 July to be sent to examination to define the reason of the accident, the experts will also examine the material from the surveillance cameras.^[25] The viewing platforms of the bridge had been reopened 16 September.^[26]

In May 2020 the glass got cracked once again and was fenced for the repairment work.^[27]

18 December 2020 one of the glass panels got cracked. Kyiv City State Administration stated that the repairment is being conducted by the original contractor and no city funds had been spent on it.^[28]

In February 2021 two glass panels of the bridge got cracked. They had been replaced in May.^[29]

29 July 2021 an information sign at the bridge got cracked. Examining the surveillance video police identified the criminal to be a 1997-born man from Lutsk and arrested him. He said that he came to Kyiv for recreation and called his actions an accident because he just wanted to test the sign's strength. He was sentenced to five years in jail for hooliganism.^[30]

Automobile trespassing

17 June 2019 a Mercedes ML drove through the bridge despite the cars being banned from accessing a pedestrian zone. Police found the vehicle owner by a number plate and charged him with a 400 hryvnias fine.^[31]

Another trespassing happened in February 2020. A group of young people listening to Russian rap in their car drove through the pedestrian bridge in the night while filming it on camera.^[32]

Bombing during 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

As part of the 10 October 2022 missile strikes on Ukraine, a Russian missile hit the bridge, but the bridge survived with minor damage.^[33][34] On 11 October 2022, Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, said that repairs are already underway.^[35] On 17 December 2022, the bridge reopened with all 18 floor glass units as well as 143 side glasses replaced.^[36]