Đurđevića Tara Bridge

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Đurđevića Tara Bridge
Carries	cars, pedestrians
Crosses	the Tara River
Locale	close to Žabljak, Montenegro
Design	arch bridge
Longest span	116 m
Total length	365 m
Clearance below	170 m
Opening date	1940

Đurđevića Tara Bridge is arch bridge over the Tara River in northern Montenegro. It is located at the crossroads between Mojkovac, Žabljak and Pljevlja, between villages of Budečevica and Trešnjica.

It was built between 1937 and 1940, designed by Mijat Trojanović, who oversaw the building of the bridge. When it was finished, it was the biggest vehicular concrete arch bridge in Europe.

The bridge is 365 m long, and has five arches, the biggest having span of 116 m. Distance between the roadbed and the river is 172 m.

In 1942 shortly after work on the bridge was completed, Italian forces and a group of Chetniks (a royalist, Serbian resistance movement which, while opposing the German occupation of Serbia during World War II, more fiercely opposed Yugoslavia's Communist Partisan resistance) arrived in the area. In order to thwart their advance, the Partisans who had constructed the bridge had to destroy it . One of the bridge engineers, Lazar Jaukovic, blew up the central arch, cutting off the only feasible crossing over the the gorge and thus blocking the Italian/Chetnik advance. It was a heroic act that cost Jaukovic his life: When he was eventually captured, the Italians executed the engineer on his bridge.

In 1946, the bridge was rebuilt. It remains an engineering marvel and the main crossing point over the Tara Canyon, and perhaps for that reason was fortunately not bombed by NATO during its assault on Yugoslavia.