Small bridge

Small Bridge (Mali most, Мали мост) is a steel bridge in Zrenjanin, Serbia.

Name

In Serbian, the bridge is known as Мали мост or Mali most, in Hungarian as Kishid, and in German as Kleine Brücke.

The wooden bridge

The current steel bridge was preceded by a wooden bridge in the same location. The old wooden bridge was built after a great fire in 1807. It was a bascule bridge, which was opened for the boat traffic. It was replaced in 1904 by the new steel bridge.

History

The Small Bridge is the oldest bridge in Zrenjanin. It connects the town center with the Mala Amerika quarter. It was built in 1904, the same year as the Eiffel Bridge, often called "The Eiffel's bridge". There are some indications that the Small bridge was also designed in Eiffel's studio (it is similar to some bridges in Timişoara).

The bridge's first official name was "Franz Joseph I Bridge" ("Most Franje Josifa" in Serbian, "Franz-Josefs Brücke" in German, or "Ferencz József Hid" in Hungarian), named after Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph I. This bridge also had a movable middle part, to accommodate boat traffic on the Begej river.

After World War I, new authorities renamed it to "Караџићев мост" (Karadžić's Bridge), named after Vuk Karadžić. This name did not stick; among Zrenjanin citizens it simply remained "Мали мост" ("Small Bridge").

Small Bridge today

In the year 1985 the bed of the Begej river was moved and three lakes were made of its old bed; the bridge was left without the river. It now crosses one of the lakes, but it did not lose its significance. It is still one of the Zrenjanin symbols, of the century-old striving of its citizens to span the river, to enlarge and develop the town on its both banks.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Small Bridge" and modified on 23 July 2019 under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.