BRIDGE OF HOPE - STARI MOST

Stari Most (English translation: `The Old Bridge`) is a 16th century bridge in the city of Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina spanning the river Neretva and connecting two parts of the city. The structure was commissioned by Suleiman the Magnificent in 1557 to replace an earlier wooden suspension bridge of dubious stability.

Suleiman became Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in 1520, when he was 26 years old, centered on Turkey, embracing Syria, Palestine and Egypt as well as the two holiest Islamic cities, Medina and Mecca. Suleiman was determined to expand his Empire in every direction and one of his first European targets was Belgrade. He captured the Serbian city from the King of Hungary in 1521. By 1526 Hungary had more or less succumbed to the Ottomans but it took another 15 years to consolidate for the partition of the Kingdom.

Suleiman brought the Ottoman Empire to its golden age and during his reign, the Surlymaniye Mosque in Istanbul, which is his final resting place, was commissioned. Numerous bridges were built throughout the Ottoman Empire, such as the Danube Bridge, the Bridge at Buda, the aqueducts that solved Instanbul`s water shortage and the incomparable Stari Most.
                         
Construction commenced in 1567 and took nine years. Little is known about the construction methods used to build the bridge, and all that has been preserved in writing are based on memories and legends. The name of the builder was Mimar Hayruddin, a student of Mimar Sinan, the great Ottoman architect. Charged under death to construct a bridge of such unprecedented dimensions, he was reportedly prepared for his own funeral on the day the scaffolding was finally removed from the completed structure. Upon its completion it was the widest man-made arch in the world. A number of associated technical issues remain a mystery: how the scaffolding was erected and maintained, and how the stone was moved from one bank to the other. The bridge as originally built can be classed among the most challenging structures ever constructed.

The bridge is hump-backed, 4 metres wide and 30 metres long and dominates the river from a height of 24 metres. Two fortified towers protect it. The arch of the bridge was made of local stone and its shape is the result of numerous irregularities produced by the deformation of the intrados (the innerline of the arch). The most accurate description would be that it is a circle of which the centre is depressed of foundations. Instead the bridge has abutments linked to walls along the riverside cliffs.  Measuring from the summer water level of 40.05 metres, the abutments were erected at a height of 6.53 metres from which the arch springs to its high point. The start of the arch is emphasised by a moulding 0.32 in height. The rise of the arch is 12.02 metres.

The bridge stood for 427 years and survived numerous wars including the German Panzers driven across it during World War 2. It was wantonly destroyed on 9 November 1993 during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovinia which resulted in an International outcry. At the end of that war, the World Bank, UNESCO, the Aga Kahn for Culture and the Worlds Monument Fund, formed a coalition to oversee the reconstruction of the Stari Most and the historic city centre of Mostar. Additional funding was provided by Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Croatia and the European Bank.

During October 1998, UNESCO established an international committee of experts to oversee the design and reconstruction of the bridge. It was decided to build the bridge as similar as possible as the original, using the same technology and materials. Hungarian Army divers recovered stone from the original bridge from the river below ---a Herculean task in itself! The reconstruction of the bridge commenced on 7 June 2001 and was inaugurated on 23 July 2004.
 
In a tradition started centuries ago, the locals dive from the bridge into the river. It is an activity tightly controlled by the 100-member Mostari Diver`s club. It is an extreme sport and the only other place it can be seen is when performed by the cliff divers at Acapulco in Mexico. It takes approximately 3 seconds between diving from the bridge before hitting the water. The most important thing for the diver is to break the water with his hands and never the head, and to enter the water at an angle of no more than 35 degrees. A normal Olympic Pool used for diving is 10 metres deep and even when the waters of the Neretva run strongly it is no more than 5 metres deep.
 
The iconic Stari Most bridge is perhaps symbolic of the exceptional challenges requiring communities with diverse cultural, ethnic and religious backgrounds to coexist.

Pieter Rautenbach