The Borovsko Bridge is an unfinished highway bridge near , part of
Bernartice municipality,
Central Bohemian Region
The Central Bohemian Region ( cz, Středočeský kraj, german: Mittelböhmische Region) is an administrative unit ( cz, kraj) of the Czech Republic, located in the central part of its historical region of Bohemia. Its administrative centre is in ...
, Czech Republic. It is commonly known as the "Czech Avignon" or "
Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...
's Bridge".
The original bridge over the
Sedlický River near Borovsko was under construction at KM 59 of the highway between 1939–42 and 1948-50. Construction was commenced in July 1939 by the civil engineering company "ing. J. Domanský". The planned budget was 5,552,400 crowns.
Despite most
civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewage ...
projects in
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
being halted after the
German invasion of the Soviet Union
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
in 1941, in order that material scheduled for them could be diverted to the Nazi war effort, the construction of the bridge continued, although it was halted after the
assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
On 27 May 1942 in Prague, Reinhard Heydrichthe commander of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA), acting governor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and a principal architect of the Holocaustwas attacked and wounded in an assassinatio ...
, the Nazi overlord of Czechoslovakia. Under the Communist regime which came about at the end of World War II, construction resumed, even though the emphasis at the time was on heavy industry and railroads rather than on automobile travel.
[Burgess, Bruce (exec. prod.) (May 18, 2017) "The Tesla Conspiracy" (season 1, episode 6) ''Mysteries of the Abandoned'' (TV series) ]Science Channel
Science Channel (often simply branded as Science; abbreviated to SCI) is an American pay television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel features programming focusing on science related to wilderness survival, engineering, manu ...
The bridge itself was completed at the end of 1950 and formally approved by the authorities in 1952. However, highway construction was suspended in the 1950s, the rampart at the southern end was never finished, and the bridge was abandoned.
The 1960s brought new hope for the Borovsko Bridge and Czech highways. At the time, a project for a new large drinking-water reservoir for
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
was under consideration. Natural supply provided a high quality of water but a huge artificial lake was to flood a number of valleys, including two valleys where the Borovsko Bridge and the smaller neighbouring Sedmpanský Bridge were situated. Various scenarios were examined. One of them was reducing the lake size, but the city of Prague required millions of litres of drinking water. The other option was hydroinsulation of the bridge construction – but this approach was almost as costly as building a new bridge, even without considering the cost of water protection in case of accident etc. Finally, the decision was made to bypass the valley and to build a completely new bridge 1.4 km upriver to the south.
The dam has been in operation since 1976 and the sector of the D1 highway since 1977. The Borovsko Bridge and the Sedmpanský Bridge were abandoned, as were the routes a few kilometres west and east from the bridges' location. Today, huge spans of the Borovsko Bridge have been flooded almost up to the roadway. The bridge rests unseen in the middle of the forests of the
Bohemian-Moravian Highlands
The Bohemian-Moravian Highlands ( cs, Českomoravská vrchovina or ''Vysočina''; german: Böhmisch-Mährische Höhe) is a geomorphological macroregion and mountain range in the Czech Republic. Its highest peaks are the Javořice at and Devět s ...
, as the whole lake district is a forbidden area and entry is strictly prohibited to protect the
watershed.
["Borovsko Bridge"]
''DangerousRoads.org''
References
{{reflist
Bridges to nowhere
Bridges in the Czech Republic
Benešov District