After 83 years, the green metal structure no longer towers above by the Sava River in the heart of Belgrade.
That's right by removing the central arch part Old Sava Bridge on July 30, one of the symbols of Belgrade ceased to exist.
The recognizable green arch was removed from the poles and moved to barges with hydraulic cranes, which should further remove it from the river bed, reported the reporter of Radio Free Europe.
Traffic on the bridge was suspended from November 1, 2024, and removal began in April 2025, despite the opposition of a section of citizens.
What will happen to the bridge?
No one can give an answer to this question with certainty, since there is no official information about what will happen to the remains of the bridge.
The mayor of Belgrade, Aleksandar Šapić, said in November of last year that he did not know what would happen to the bridge, and the media later learned that it would be taken apart and stored somewhere until it was decided what to do with it.
It is being considered that he will be transferred somewhere in Belgrade or in Serbia. In Belgrade, it could replace the temporary pontoon crossing on Lida, which would enable a permanent pedestrian crossing, or connect New Belgrade with Ada. And there is a possibility to choose something else. A favorable place for him in Serbia has not yet been found, such a move would entail other infrastructural works, "Vreme" previously wrote.
Surveys on the fate of the bridge
Back in the fall of 2019, a survey was launched in which citizens could vote on the fate of the bridge.
Citizens in the survey could then vote for one of the two options offered.
Option 1 included two interventions. One is the construction of a new bridge for pedestrian and bicycle traffic, with access paths, in the continuation of the Street of Youth Brigades to Ada Ciganlija, the appearance of which would be defined by the project. The second intervention, within Variant 1, is the dismantling of the Old Sava Bridge and the re-assembly of the arched steel structure of the main span in the Ušće Park, at the position between TC "Ušće" and the Museum of Contemporary Art.
Variant 2 involved the relocation and extension of the bridge between New Belgrade and Ada Ciganlija for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. It was supposed to include the dismantling and reassembly of the bridge, the construction of new concrete pillars and the missing steel structures, and the construction of access paths in the continuation of Ulica omladniški brigada to Ada Ciganlija.
In the spring of 2025, a new survey was launched. More than 11.000 citizens of Belgrade gave a clear message: support for moving the bridge - but without endangering nature, the organization Belgrade in Movement announced at the time.
The Belgrade on the Move organization conducted a survey with 11.773 participants, in which 71 percent supported the relocation of the Old Sava Bridge to the Lido - under one condition: the Great War Island must remain protected.
25 percent were against it, while four percent of respondents stated that there was not enough information.
The "Belgrade on the Move" initiative announced after the results were published that it would sue the "Belgrade Remains" Initiative for claiming that the results of the survey on the relocation of the historic Old Sava Bridge to Zemun were falsified.
The "Belgrade Remains" initiative then assessed that the survey was false and that "the government is using a rigged survey of citizens to move the Old Sava Bridge as far as possible from the left bank of the Sava", the reasons for which are the expansion of "Belgrade on the Water" to New Belgrade and the construction of a dock for the Expo 2027 exhibition.
Protests against the demolition of the bridge
Photo: FoNet/Milica VučkovićThe Most Remains and Belgrade Remains initiatives have been protesting for months
Citizens and activists of the "Belgrade Remains" and "The Bridge Remains" initiatives, who have been protesting for months against the demolition of the Old Sava Bridge, held a protest rally at the construction site on the Sava bank the previous day and on that occasion called on the mayor of Belgrade, Aleksandar Šapić, to bring papers on the relocation of the bridge and the construction of a new one, but he did not show up.
"For years, we have received the silence of the city administration, the silence of inspections, the Institute for the Protection of Monuments, which behaves like a private video club of the regime's powerful, so we have a total and open destruction of the legal system at work here," Jelena Radović, an activist of the "Belgrade Remains" initiative, said during a press conference.
What did the mayor of Belgrade and the president of Serbia say about the bridge?
In recent years, the Old Sava Bridge has found itself in the middle of the housing and business project "Belgrade on the Water", promoted by the authorities.
The mayor of Belgrade, Aleksandar Šapić, an official of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, has repeatedly said that the Old Sava Bridge is unconditioned, old and hinders the development of the Serbian capital.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, said earlier that the bridge is about to collapse, and that "a new magnificent bridge will be built in its place, which will be the pride of all Belgraders".
A short history lesson
The Old Sava Bridge was brought to Belgrade by the Germans during the Second World War. They installed it in 1942 and named it Prince Eugen.
In some historical sources, it is described as the only bridge in Europe that was not destroyed by the Nazis in their retreat before the Allied army.
From 1942 and the time of the Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, this 430-meter-long steel structure across the Sava River connected the old and new parts of the capital of today's Serbia.
Source: Vreme/RFE
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