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On the Danube bank, Pontoon Bridge, Novi Sad, before 1883

Neusatz seen from Peterwardein

1883 · document

Pontoon bridge below the fortress

1910s

The pontoon bridge on blue water

1917

About this place

Before any permanent bridge stood here, Novi Sad and Petrovaradin were joined by a wooden pontoon bridge laid across the Danube on oak floats. Crossings of this kind were used from the late seventeenth century, and the first standing bridge dates from 1788; it was known as Hagen's bridge after the officer, Baron von Hagen, who designed it on the model of one at Mannheim. It was laid each spring by the pontonier unit stationed at Petrovaradin and taken up again before the first ice, and its middle section could be drawn aside to let river traffic through. Carts paid a toll while anything carried by hand went free, residents of the two towns crossed without charge, and the season opened every year with a handshake between the mayor of Novi Sad and the commandant of the fortress. The bridge was removed for the last time in 1918, when work began on the permanent crossing that became the Prince Tomislav bridge.

Danube crossing between Novi Sad and Petrovaradin

Pontoon Bridge

Images7

On the Danube bank

Neusatz seen from Peterwardein

Pontoon bridge

Boats on the Danube

Steamship Starcevic

Pontoon bridge below the fortress

The pontoon bridge on blue water