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Exciting Cities - Bratislava

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Of the five bridges that span the mighty River Danube as it meanders through Slovakia’s capital, Bratislava, three have been constructed in just over 25 years.

Tourist guides focus on the colourful past and architectural heritage of Europe’s youngest and smallest capital, but these impressive structures across the Danube tell a different story. They symbolise the city’s focus on bridging a past that included periods of Fascist and Communist domination and its exciting future as part of Europe.

Its new bridges, however, have much more than symbolic significance. They play a vital role in a capital at the very heart of Europe that is fast expanding and receiving growing numbers of visitors.

Bratislava
It is difficult to imagine, as one enjoys a drink by the Danube in this vibrant city, with its stylish modern architecture and busy roads, that for most of its existence it coped with just one crossing point on the river: the aptly named Old Bridge which was completed in 1825 but needed to be rebuilt in 1945 by the Soviet army and German prisoners-of-war. It is still in use, though complete reconstruction is planned in the near future.

G4S Slovakia protect Slovnaft from fire
The Apollo bridge is named after a nearby oil refinery that was established more than a century ago. Badly damaged during World War II, it was replaced by the Slovnaft refinery in the 1960s.

Today, having expanded very successfully into one of Europe’s leading refineries, it produces a range of petrochemical products as a key pillar of the MOL Group, which plans to triple hydrocarbon production to 300,000 barrels a day and the sale of refined products up to 500,000 barrels a day over the coming five years.

Fire prevention and firefighting readiness are essential for any refinery and, in the case of Slovnaft, G4S Slovakia has this responsibility, with a 10-year contract that commenced in 2002. In the event of a serious fire in the capital, the G4S fire-fighting team at Slovnaft is also required to provide assistance to the city’s fire brigade.

G4S security services contracts give national coverage, to a wide range of industries, commercial businesses and numerous retailers and hypermarkets. G4S provides extensive cash services and extends alarm monitoring and response services over a wide area.		Only in 1972 did Bratislava get a second bridge – the New Bridge certainly lived up to that title in its early days, particularly with its circular restaurant sitting like a flying saucer on one of its pylons.

Today, the elevated eating and viewing area has been renamed “UFO” and provides visitors with impressive views across the city.

This was followed in 1985 by the Harbour Bridge, a major doublefloor motorway-railroad truss bridge which also has cycle and pedestrian lanes.

Just seven years later, the Lafranconi Bridge, a four-lane motorway bridge, also with lanes for cyclists and pedestrians, opened.

Spanning the Danube with these additional bridges became essential when, during Czechoslovakia’s Socialist period in the 1970s, the largest borough, Petrzalka, on the right bank of the Danube, developed rapidly as a residential district with numerous concrete tower blocks.

Since the rest of Bratislava, including its commercial and financial centres, was on the left bank, the two parts of the city needed to be joined in more places.

There was also a need to carry two motorways across the river. But even the four bridges described were not enough.

Petrzalka now houses 120,000 residents. So September 2005 saw the opening of the Apollo Bridge, a 231-metre steel structure, whose advanced and sophisticated design was voted one of the five finalists in the US-run 2006 Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement Award.

The provision of professional security services operating to international standards is vital for a country with nearly half a million inhabitants and ambitious plans for the future … and that is particularly true of its capital.

Already regarded as a Central European hotspot for its nightlife and tourist attractions, Bratislava is also the focus of attention for many property developers.

It borders three European neighbours – Hungary, the Czech Republic and Austria – and enjoys twin-city status with the latter’s capital, Vienna. This geographical advantage puts it firmly on the tourist map.

New projects, like the up-market mixed-use Eurovea complex of flats, shops and five star hotel, and the similar high-rise Twin City development, both on the Danube’s embankment, are expected to attract a lot of new investment to Bratislava.

Bratislava’s citizens can certainly look forward to an exciting future and, with the help of G4S, a secure one, too.
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This page is an edited version of the article by Roy Stemman featured in the September 2007 edition of International.
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Bratislava's History


Once capital of Hungary, formerly known as Pressburg, the city in which Maria Teresa was crowned queen of that country, as were 10 other Hungarian monarchs during a 300-year period.

Its more recent history has seen Bratislava occupied by the Czech Republic in 1919; become the capital of a fascist Slovak state in 1939 following occupation by Nazi Germany; liberation by Soviet and Romanian armies in 1945; a Communist take-over in 1948; and joining with the Czechs again in 1969, in a federation that made it once more a capital – this time of the Slovak Socialist Republic.

That federation was known as Czechoslovakia and its “velvet revolution” in 1989 overthrew the Soviet-imposed Marxist-Leninist government. Four years later, the federation was dissolved and Bratislava became capital of an independent Slovak Republic.

And so, after its various arranged marriages, Slovakia had eventually achieved a divorce by mutual consent and, though many regard it has having lost out economically when it split from the Czech Republic, the country is now enjoying its new-found freedom. In particular, it is benefiting from being one of the 10 countries, along with the Czech Republic, which joined the European Union in May 2004.