Instead of connecting them, the bridge on the river Ibar in Kosovska Mitrovica separates the banks.
Ever since the inter-ethnic conflicts, when the city in the north of Kosovo was divided into two parts in June 1999 - the northern one where the Serbs live, and the southern one with the majority Albanian population, the main bridge has been closed to traffic.
A divided city with approx 130.000 inhabitants it became a symbol of the division of the whole of Kosovo.
When we say "Serbs south of the Ibar", we mean Serbs who live outside the imaginary whole of northern Kosovo, which consists of four municipalities: Severna Mitrovica, Leposavić, Zvečan and Zubin Potok.
In recent weeks, the Pristina authorities have announced that they will open the bridge for cars to cross, which official Belgrade and Western embassies oppose, fearing that it could lead to new tensions.
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By opening the bridge, Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti wants to show that he has power over the entire territory of Kosovo, they say analysts.
In the past quarter of a century, since 1999, more than a thousand incidents.
It was the route by which the Albanians wanted to enter the Serbian part, and the Serbs prevented it with barricades and living walls.
Since the arrival of international troops in 1999, their forces have been deployed on the bridge - first the French, and then the Italian Carabinieri.
The bridge has repeatedly been the subject of more than a decade-long dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, which began a few years after the unilateral declaration of Kosovo's independence from Serbia in 2008.
AAugust 1999. in a divided city
Dejan Anastasijević, then a Vremen journalist and later a BBC editor, reported from the newly divided Mitrovica.
The guys on the bridge are guarding the northern side of the Ibar, "a murky river that can be stepped on", from about five hundred Albanian families who wanted to return to their apartments from where they were forced out during the stormy days after the withdrawal of Serbian security forces and the arrival of NATO soldiers.
In those few days of June, a "humane exchange of population" took place between Serbs and Albanians, Anastasijević wrote.
The northern and southern sides of the city have become ethnically clean. Most of the southern part was burned to the ground, while the northern part remained almost untouched.
At that time, the Albanians demonstrated daily in the south, demanding that the French soldiers enable a mass crossing of the bridge.
When a group of about two hundred Albanian demonstrators approached the bridge, the number of guards on the Serbian side increased tenfold in two minutes, creating a living wall.
As soon as the Albanians turned left in a circle, the "reserve" dispersed, leaving the usual ten guys on shift.
A passage of text Mostar na Ibru
One of the most serious incidents was recorded the following winter, on February 13, 2000, when a large number of Albanians from all over Kosovo - the media wrote "around 40.000" - set off across the bridge from southern Mitrovica, in protest under the slogan "march of peace".
However, the demonstrators used stones, but also military weapons, and the French soldiers used tear gas, smoke and shock bombs and rubber bullets, she wrote. Politics.
For decades, Serbs responded to attempts to use the bridge by erecting construction obstacles, but there were also conflicts.
Movement on the bridge was prevented by the concrete and planters of the so-called Peace Park in 2014, which was dismantled after two years, and various concrete and tin structures were installed.
The group of Serbs, known as the bridge guards, was then led by Oliver Ivanovic, at the beginning of a political career that ended with an unsolved murder in 2018.
How bridge looks like today
On the white bridge with metal arches and bars on the sides, people walk undisturbed, next to it is a car of the Italian carabinieri, and for weeks there are craftsmen painting and restoring it so that, in accordance with the announcements of the Kosovo authorities, traffic will be open.
On the way from the pedestrian zone in the Serbian part, which is dominated by the monument to Prince Lazar erected in 2016, you cross the bridge to reach the part of the city where there are numerous craft shops and stores.
It is possible to cross the river by car on two other nearby bridges.
Two philosophies are still clashing over the Ibar and the issue of the bridge - coexistence and integration, and division, says political scientist Nejmedin Spahiu from South Mitrovica.
"The bridge has lost its significance since the agreement in Brussels agreed that it should be closed as a main road and that a promenade be built, then it was also agreed that it should be narrowed - that instead of four lanes, there would be two.
"For the representatives of the Serbs, it was important that it remain as a psychological barrier, even though the bridge is very necessary for traffic," Spahiu told the BBC in Serbian.
Agreement in Brussels in 2015. Belgrade and Pristina have agreed that the bridge will be closed with banks during the works and that it will be open to traffic by the summer of 2016.
Spahiu crosses the bridge on foot every day, as do many fellow citizens, and incidents are becoming rarer, he says.
"Now it's different in the north, especially after Banjska, because the semi-official structures of Serbia are not there," claims Spahiu.
In the village of Banjska, near Zvečan in the north of Kosovo, in a conflict between the police and an armed group of Serbs, a Kosovo policeman and three attackers led by Milan Radoičić, a businessman and former vice president of the Serbian List, Serbian representatives with the support of Belgrade, were killed.
He left Kosovo after the conflict, and a warrant was issued for him.
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Today, the north of Kosovo is increasingly under the administration of the Kosovo authorities, the use of the dinar has been abolished, post offices are closed, and there are more and more Serbs who have Kosovo documents and license plates.
That in the north of Kosovo "there is not even S of Serbia", believes Goran Bogdanović, Minister for Kosovo during the rule of the Democratic Party in Serbia, in the first decade of the 21st century.
Many Serbs from the north of Kosovo still feel that it is Serbia, he claims, and that is why the bridge is a psychological border for them.
"The bridge is of symbolic importance, because in 1999 the resistance started there," says Bogdanović.
At that time, Serbs from Mitrovica, but also from nearby Leposavić and Zubina Potok, came in organized buses to guard the bridge in shifts.
"Unfortunately, that bridge has to be opened at some point, although perhaps the majority of Serbs would not want it," says Bogdanović.
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What are the reactions of the officials?
At the moment, there is a real risk regarding the opening of the bridge in Mitrovica, because it could affect the safety of NATO troops, including American soldiers, warned Jeffrey Hovenier, the American ambassador to Kosovo, for Radio Free Europe (RSE).
Pristina wants to open the bridge on the Ibar as soon as possible, said Prime Minister of Kosovo Albin Kurti.
"Neither do we want to surprise European and American partners, friends and allies on the one hand, nor can we allow this issue to drag on indefinitely," Kurti said.
The opening of the bridge in Mitrovica is the subject of two agreements between Belgrade and Pristina in 2015 and 2016, and despite the efforts of European officials, the bridge remained closed to traffic, said the spokesman of the German embassy in Pristina, Christian Bečer.
Bečer, like most international officials, believes that the decision to open the bridge should be made within the framework of dialogue.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, expects the international community and KFOR to keep their word - "that the bridge will not be opened without a common will".
Worry
Announcements of the opening create anxiety among Serbs, warns Bogdanović.
"Serbs from the north are also constantly harassed, from the administrative crossing of Jarinje (between Serbia and Kosovo) to Mitrovica, if you go by car, you will be stopped by five patrols of the Kosovo police, past the official checkpoints," describes Bogdanović.
Kurti needs the story about the bridge before the elections, which are scheduled for February 9, "as a crown of everything he has done," he says.
However, one gets the impression that the tension surrounding the opening of the bridge for traffic is also beneficial to Belgrade, he believes.
"People interpret that it is part of the agreement of Kurti, the countries of Quinta and Belgrade, especially due to the crisis and protests over lithium, to shift the topic to Kosovo," he claims.
Sixten years after the declaration of independence, Kosovo was recognized by about 100 countries. However, the exact number is not known.
Pristina cites a figure of 117 countries, and in Belgrade they say that there are far fewer.
Among the countries of the European Union that have not recognized Kosovo are Spain, Slovakia, Cyprus, Greece and Romania, and when it comes to world powers, they are Russia, China, Brazil and India.
Since 2008, Kosovo has become a member of several international organizations, such as the IMF, the World Bank and FIFA, but not the United Nations.
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