Bridges

Please share some photos of bridges in your city!




Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina


Sarajevo, and the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, has always been famous for its bridges. Whether its the 11-arch 'Bridge on the Drina' in Visegrad, or the single-span 'Stari Most' in Mostar - the Ottoman bridges constructed on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina are impressive.

Sarajevo's modest little Miljacka River could not provide an inspiration for such monumental bridges but it did allow architect's to bridge the barely-meters wide river in beautiful and interesting ways.


The �eher Čehajina Bridge is my favorite in Sarajevo. It was built in 1585 by Alija Hafizadić, but its current name comes from a superintendent (ćehaja) who repaired the bridge in later years.

It has five arches and four massive buttresses, although only four are visible. Last century, when the Miljacka river was formally banked where it passes through Sarajevo, one of the arches had to be burried as the river's width was severely reduced.

The bridge is about 50.9 meters long, and 4.5 meters wide. When it was built in 1585, the bridge connected the common Bascarsija, or market place, district with the well-to-do mansions of Alifakovac, the merchant's district.

The bridge was horribly disfigured in 1904 when it's korkaluk, or surrounding wall, was demolished to add pedestrian pathways. However, after the 1992-1995 war, the bridge needed to be repaired anyway and city officials wisely decided to return it to its original appeareance, which we may now enjoy again.



The Latin Bridge is Sarajevo's most famous bridge. It connects Miljacka's North Bank with the part of the town where Christians lived, called Latinluk or Frenkaluk - after which the bridge was named.


However, in history books around the world it is called Principov Most - or Princip's Bridge -  after Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb teenager who shot and killed the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his pregnant wife, Sofia. The murders took place at the entrance to the bridge.




The Kozja, or 'Goat's', Bridge was for many centuries the last bridge crossed on the journey from Istanbul to Sarajevo. It was built in the XVI Century and is 42 meters long. It has one arch with two spherical openings and the vault span is 17.5 meters, and the bridge width is 4.75 meters.




The Cumurija Bridge connected Sarajevo between At-Mejdan Park on the South Bank and Ajas-Pasha's Mosque on the North Bank. The bridge was built by Hadzi Hasan in 1556 and has been repaired several times. It was replaced by an iron one in 1886.




The Bridge of Suada Dilberovic is the place where the first two victims of the siege of Sarajevo were killed. Suada and Olga were part of a group of a protestors demanding an end to the wars of aggression against Slovenia and Croatia when Bosnian Serb snipers opened fire.

The bridge is engraved with Suada's last words, "Oh please, please God don't let them do this to Sarajevo!" and a famous line, "Here my blood was spilled so that Bosnia might live."


And a few more bridges in Sarajevo: