Đurđevića Tara Bridge
Мост на Ђурђевића Тари
Interesting facts
- The timber falsework for the great arch used about 650 cubic metres of spruce, squared by hand with axes and raised within six months.
- Before the bridge existed, the road from Pljevlja to Nikšić had to wind down to a low wooden crossing at the very bottom of the canyon.
- Its construction was budgeted at about 11.5 million Yugoslav dinars, and roughly another million was added as difficulties mounted on site.
- A formal opening was planned for spring 1941, but it never took place because the German and Italian invasion of Yugoslavia came first.
- The height of its deck above the Tara is quoted anywhere from about 150 to 172 metres, depending on river level and the point measured.
- The arch the partisans destroyed in 1942 was the southwesternmost one, cutting the only practical crossing of the canyon.
- The 1969 Yugoslav film about its destruction, The Bridge, became hugely popular in China, alongside Walter Defends Sarajevo.
- Harrison Ford and Robert Shaw starred in Force 10 from Navarone, the 1978 war film that used the bridge as a location.
Why it is worth it
In northern Montenegro the Tara River cuts a deep canyon through the mountains, and at one of its narrowest points a slender concrete bridge leaps across it. The Đurđevića Tara Bridge, named after the village of Đurđevića Tara just to the north, is about 365 metres long, curves gently in plan and carries its two-lane road roughly 150 metres or more above the water. Its main arch spans 116 metres, followed on the western side by four smaller arches; when it opened in 1940 it was among the largest concrete road arch bridges in Europe.
The bridge was designed by the engineer Mijat Trojanović and built in the late 1930s, opening to traffic in November 1940, in the last years of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with Isaac Russo as chief engineer. The great arch was cast on falsework of hand-hewn spruce, carried by two timber towers about 100 and 141 metres high and designed by the Swiss master carpenter Richard Coray. The concrete went in three stages, so that each finished part helped carry the weight of the next and the timber frame did not have to bear the whole arch at once.
The bridge's fame comes from the Second World War. After the invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 the area came under Italian occupation and became a centre of partisan resistance. In 1942, to stop an advance across the canyon, partisans blew up one of the bridge's arches with the help of Lazar Jauković, one of the engineers who had built it. The crossing was cut, but Jauković was later captured and executed by the Italians on the bridge itself; a memorial to him stands at its entrance. The bridge was rebuilt in 1946. Its story inspired the Yugoslav film "Most" (The Bridge) of 1969, and the bridge appears in the 1978 British film "Force 10 from Navarone" and in the Dutch novel "Het land achter Gods rug" by A. den Doolaard. Today zip lines cross the gorge beside it, and rafting trips on the Tara start nearby.
Getting there
The bridge carries the M6 road across the Tara canyon, at the meeting point of the Pljevlja, Mojkovac and Žabljak municipalities. Pljevlja is about 24 km away in a straight line, and Žabljak about 25 km to the west by road. The nearest airport is Podgorica Airport (TGD), about 88 km away in a straight line.
Plan your visit
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Nearby places
- Black Lake (Durmitor) 16.9 km · lake
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Đurđevića Tara Bridge is a concrete arch bridge over the Tara River in northern Montenegro.
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