The Vanšu Bridge () in

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

is a

cable-stayed bridge A cable-stayed bridge has one or more ''towers'' (or ''pylons''), from which wire rope, cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or wikt:stay#Etymology 3, stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, norm ...

that crosses the

Daugava The Daugava ( ), also known as the Western Dvina or the Väina River, is a large river rising in the Valdai Hills of Russia that flows through Belarus and Latvia into the Gulf of Riga of the Baltic Sea. The Daugava rises close to the source of ...

river in Riga, the capital of

Latvia Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is one of the three Baltic states, along with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south. It borders Russia to the east and Belarus to t ...

. The word ''vanšu'' refers to the cables suspending its deck, comparing them to nautical rigging also known as

shrouds Shroud usually refers to an item, such as a cloth, that covers or protects some other object. The term is most often used in reference to ''burial sheets'', mound shroud, grave clothes, winding-cloths or winding-sheets, such as the Jewish '' ...

in English; thus a direct translation of the name is ''Shroud Bridge''. 595 meters in length, it is one of five bridges crossing the Daugava in Riga and passes over

Ķīpsala Ķīpsala is an island on the left bank of the Daugava river, connected to Riga city center and Pārdaugava by the Shroud Bridge. Ķīpsala is divided from the rest of Riga by the Daugava in the east, '' Roņu dīķis'' in the north, '' Zun ...

island. It was built during the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

period and opened to public use on 21 July 1981 as the Gorky Bridge () after

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

street, today renamed

Krišjānis Valdemārs Krišjānis Valdemārs (in Germanized spelling as Christian Waldemar or Woldemar) (2 December 1825 at Vecjunkuri in Ārlava parish (now Valdgale parish, Courland, Latvia) – 7 December 1891 in Moscow, Russia) was a writer, editor, Education, edu ...

street, which it extends across the river. In the last decade there have been more than 10 instances of people attempting to climb the cables. The only one with lethal consequences was on 7 June 2012, when a man committed

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Risk factors for suicide include mental disorders, physical disorders, and substance abuse. Some suicides are impulsive acts driven by stress (such as from financial or ac ...

by jumping down from the bridge's cables. After the incident

Riga City Council Riga City Council () is the government of the city of Riga, the capital of Latvia. Its meeting place is in the Riga Town Hall (''Rīgas rātsnams)'' at the Town Hall Square (''Rātslaukums'') in the very heart of Riga. The Riga City Council con ...

ordered for

barbed wire Roll of modern agricultural barbed wire Barbed wire, also known as barb wire or bob wire (in the Southern and Southwestern United States), is a type of steel fencing wire constructed with sharp edges or points arranged at intervals along the ...

entanglements to be installed on the cables. In 2013 a beach with a playground and volleyball field was opened next to the Vanšu bridge in Ķīpsala. An extensive renovation project for the bridge is scheduled to begin in 2023.

Gallery

File:Riga.-SwedBank Tower and vanšu bridge (1).JPG File:Statue and Vanšu bridge (8230192362).jpg

References

Cable-stayed bridges in Latvia Bridges in Riga Crossings of the Daugava River Bridges built in the Soviet Union Bridges completed in 1981 {{Latvia-bridge-struct-stub