The project of a new bridge, that will connect city center with its eastern part, was created before the WW II. But the process of building started only in 1960. The 905,7 meters long and 35 meters wide the Alexander Nevsky Bridge was finished in 1965 and till 2004 (when the new Big Obukhovsky Bridge was opened) it was the longest bridge of the city.

The newly opened bridge named after the Alexander Nevsky Monastery (Lavra) serves as a part of convenient express motorway, where the traffic is arranged on 2 levels – on the embankments under the bridge and on the bridge itself. Impressing with its dimensions (spans of 110 and 123,5 meters, the beams of 5 000 tones each, the central 50 meters long drawing span), the bridge was also unique for its technical innovations: iron-concrete support shells, improved beam span support, hydraulically driven mechanism of drawing were firstly used in construction of Alexander Nevsky Bridge by the team of leading architects and engineers of Lengiprotransmost Design Institute.

In 1982 the part of the bridge crashed into the river because of construction mistake and increased traffic. The bridge was repaired and the traffic was opened again, but in 2000-2001 it was fully reconstructed again. Nowadays the Alexander Nevsky Bridge is the longest drawing bridge in Saint Petersburg.