Holiday in Harbin

About Harbin

Harbin is China's Ice City — a 5.2 million metropolis in the far northeast of the country, which becomes the backdrop for the world's largest ice and snow festival every winter. When temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees, thousands of artists and workers transform blocks from the frozen Songhua River into a glowing city of ice palaces, ice temples, and ice sculptures, illuminated at night in all the colors of the rainbow. The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival attracts 18 million visitors annually and surpasses in scale and ambition any comparable winter event in the world. But Harbin has much more to offer than ice: the city is nicknamed the "Moscow of the East," and the Russian architecture that shapes the streets tells a unique story. When the Trans-Siberian Railway was built through Manchuria in the late 19th century, thousands of Russians settled in Harbin, leaving behind onion domes, Orthodox churches, and Art Deco facades. The Saint Sophia Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church made of red brick with green onion domes, is now a photo museum and Harbin's most iconic building. Zhongyang Dajie (Central Street), a 1.4-kilometer long cobblestone pedestrian zone, is lined with over 70 European buildings in Art Nouveau and Baroque styles — resembling more of a Russian small town than a Chinese metropolis. In summer, the people of Harbin stroll here at 30 degrees (the temperature difference of 60 degrees between summer and winter is extreme), while in winter they trudge through the snow to Russian bakeries and sausage shops. The Siberian Tiger Park and the nearby Yabuli Ski Resort (China's best) provide additional reasons to visit — but it is the ice that makes Harbin unforgettable.