Theme Week China – Harbin

Thursday, 25 July 2019 - 12:00 pm (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination:
Category/Kategorie: General, UNESCO World Heritage
Reading Time:  13 minutes

© 北纬30度

© 北纬30度

Harbin is the capital of Heilongjiang province, and largest city in the northeastern region of the People’s Republic of China. Harbin is the eighth most populous Chinese city. Holding sub-provincial administrative status, Harbin has direct jurisdiction over nine metropolitan districts, two county-level cities and seven counties. Harbin has 5.3 million inhabitants, while the total population of the sub-provincial city was up to 10.98 million. Harbin serves as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural, and communications hub in Northeast China, as well as an important industrial base of the nation.

Harbin, whose name was originally a Manchu word meaning “a place for drying fishing nets”, grew from a small rural settlement on the Songhua River to become one of the largest cities in Northeast China. Founded in 1898 with the coming of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the city first prospered as a region inhabited by an overwhelming majority of the immigrants from the Russian Empire.

Having the most bitterly cold winters among major Chinese cities, Harbin is heralded as the Ice City for its well-known winter tourism and recreations. Harbin is notable for its beautiful ice sculpture festival in the winter. Besides being well known for its historical Russian legacy, the city serves as an important gateway in Sino-Russian trade today. In the 1920s, the city was considered China’s fashion capital since new designs from Paris and Moscow reached here first before arriving in Shanghai. The city was voted “China Top Tourist City” by the China National Tourism Administration in 2004.

The chernozem soil in Harbin, called “black earth” is one of the most nutrient rich in all of China, making it valuable for cultivating food and textile-related crops. As a result, Harbin is China’s base for the production of commodity grain and an ideal location for setting up agricultural businesses. Harbin also has industries such as light industry, textile, medicine, food, aircraft, automobile, metallurgy, electronics, building materials, and chemicals which help to form a fairly comprehensive industrial system. Several major corporations are based in the city. Harbin Electric Company Limited, Harbin Aircraft Industry Group and Northeast Light Alloy Processing Factory are some of key enterprises. Power manufacturing is a main industry in Harbin; hydro and thermal power equipment manufactured here makes up one-third of the total installed capacity in China. According to Platts, in 2009-10 Harbin Electric was the second largest manufacturer of steam turbines by worldwide market share, tying Dongfang Electric and slightly behind Shanghai Electric. Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, which mainly focus on research, development, manufacture and sale of medical products, is China’s second-biggest pharmaceutical company by market value. Foreign investors seem upbeat about the city. Harbin International Trade and Economic Fair has been held annually since 1990. This investment and trade fair cumulatively attracting more than 1.9 million exhibitors and visitors from more than 80 countries and regions to attend, resulting over US $100 billion contract volume concluded according to the statistics of 2013. Harbin is among major destinations of FDI in Northeast China, with utilized FDI totaling US$980 million in 2013. After the 18th regular meeting between Sino-Russian Prime Ministers between Li Keqiang and Dmitry Medvedev in October 2013, two sides come to make an agreement that the Harbin International Trade and Economic Fair will be renamed “China-Russia EXPO” and be co-sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, Heilongjiang Provincial government, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development and Russia’s Ministry of Trade and Industry. In the financial sector, Longjiang Bank and Harbin Bank are some of the largest banks in Northeast China, with headquarters in Harbin. The latter ranks 4th by competitiveness among Chinese city commercial banks in 2011. In commerce, there is Qiulin Group, which owns Harbin’s largest department store.

Located in northern Northeast China, Harbin is the northernmost among major cities in China. Under the direct influence of the Siberian Anticyclone, the average daily temperature is −19.7 °C (−3.5 °F) in winter. Annual low temperatures below −35.0 °C (−31.0 °F) are not uncommon. Nicknamed “Ice City” due to its freezingly cold winter, Harbin is decorated by various styles of Ice and snow Sculptures from December to March every year. The annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival has been held since 1985. Although the official start date is 5 January each year, in practice, many of the sculptures can be seen before. While there are ice sculptures throughout the city, there are two main exhibition areas: enormous snow sculptures at Sun Island (Taiyang Dao, a AAAAA-rated recreational area on the opposite side of the Songhua River from the city) and the separate “Ice and Snow World” that operates each night with lights switched on, illuminating the sculptures from both inside and outside. Ice and Snow World features illuminated full-size buildings made from blocks of 2–3 feet thick crystal clear ice directly taken from the Songhua River which passes through the city. The sculptures inside the exhibition ground takes 15,000 workers to work for 16 days. In early December, ice artisans cut 120,000 cubic metres (4.2 million cubic feet) of ice blocks from Songhua river’s frozen surface as raw materials for the ice sculptures’ show. Massive ice buildings, large-scale snow sculptures, ice slides, festival food and drinks can also be found in several parks and major avenues in the city. Winter activities in the festival include Yabuli Alpine Skiing, snow mobile driving, winter-swimming in Songhua River, and the traditional ice-lantern exhibition in Zhaolin Garden, which was first held in 1963. Snow carving and ice and snow recreations are famous nationwide, especially among Asian countries including Korea, Japan, Thailand and Singapore. The “Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival” is one of the four largest ice and snow festivals in the world, along with Japan’s Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada‘s Quebec Winter Carnival, and Norway‘s Holmenkollen Ski Festival. Every November, the city of Harbin sends teams of ice artisans to the United States to promote their unique art form. It takes more than 100 artisans to create ICE!, the annual display of indoor Christmas-themed ice carvings in National Harbor, Maryland; Nashville, Tennessee; Kissimmee, Florida; and Grapevine, Texas.

Harbin Ice and Snow World 2003 © LiYan/cc-by-sa-3.0 Harbin Ice and Snow World 2010 © flickr.com - Dayou_X/cc-by-sa-2.0 Harbin Ice and Snow World 2010 © flickr.com - Dayou_X/cc-by-sa-2.0 European-style building in Central Street © panoramio.com - CyberCop/cc-by-3.0 Monument to Soviet soldiers in Nagang District © Kolchak1923 © 北纬30度
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European-style building in Central Street © panoramio.com - CyberCop/cc-by-3.0
Founded in 1908, the Harbin Symphony Orchestra was China’s oldest symphony orchestra. Harbin No.1 Music School was also the first music school in China, which was founded in 1928. Nearly 100 famous musicians have studied at the school since its founding, said Liu Yantao, deputy chief of Harbin Cultural, Press and Publication Bureau. Every year, thousands of youngsters start their music dreams in this city, and the “Harbin Summer Music Concert” serial activities that always be held in the every year’s summer present the music passion of the locals. UNESCO recognizes China’s Harbin as “The Music City” as part of the Creative Cities Network in 2010.

Harbin Summer Music Concert (‘Concert’ for short) is a national concert festival, which is held on 6 August every two years for a period of 10~11 days. During the concert, multiple evenings, concert, race and activities are held. The artists come from all over the world. The ‘Harbin Summer Music Month’, which was then renamed as ‘Harbin Summer Music Concert’, was held in August 1958. The first formal Concert was held on 5 August 1961 in Harbin Youth Palace, and kept on every year until 1966 when the Cultural Revolution started in China. In 1979, the Concert was recovered and from 1994, it has been held every two years. As a part of 2006 Harbin Summer Music Concert’s opening ceremony, a 1,001-piano concert was held in Harbin’s Flood memorial square located at the north end of Central Street on 6 August 2006. Repertoires of the ensemble consisted of Triumphal March, Military March, Radetzky March and famous traditional local song On The Sun Island. This concert set a new Guinness World Record for largest piano ensemble, surpassing the previous record held by German artists in a 600-piano concert. In 2008, the 29th Harbin Summer Music Concert was held on 6 August.

Harbin is notable for its combination of Chinese and European architecture styles. Many Russian and other European style buildings are protected by the government. The architecture in Harbin gives it the nicknames of “Oriental Moscow” and “Oriental Paris” in China. Central Street, one of the main business streets in Harbin, is a remnant of the bustling international business activities at the turn of the 20th century. First built in 1898, The 1.4 km (0.87 mi) long street is now a veritable museum of European architectural styles: Baroque and Byzantine façades, little Russian bakeries and French fashion houses, as well as non European architectural styles: American eateries, and Japanese restaurants. The Russian Orthodox church, Saint Sophia Cathedral, is also located in the central district of Daoli. Built in 1907 and expanded from 1923 to 1932, it was closed during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution periods. Following its designation in 1996 as a national cultural heritage site (First class Preserved Building), it was turned into a museum as a showcase of the history of Harbin city in 1997. The 53.35 m (175.0 ft)-tall Church, which covers an area of 721 square meters, is a typical representative of Byzantine architecture. Harbin Grand Theatre is located in the cultural center of Songbei District, Harbin. It provides 1600- and 400-seat venues. The architecture uses the external design of the heterogeneous hyperbolic surface. The Harbin Grand Theatre is a landmark building in Harbin. It is built in accordance with the water and is consistent with the surrounding environment. It embodies the concept of the landscape and landscape of the north. As a public building facility, the theatre provides people and visitors with different spatial experiences from the theatre, landscape, square and stereoscopic platform. During the design process, architect Ma Yansong has set up a unique sightseeing corridor and viewing platform in the Grand Theatre. Visitors are able to overlook the surrounding wetland and enjoy the unique natural wetland scenery of Harbin. After the completion of the Harbin Grand Theatre, the public can enjoy opera, symphony, ballet and drama performances in various function rooms.

Here you can find the complete Overview of all Theme Weeks.

Read more on LonelyPlanet.com – Harbin, ChinaHighlights.com – Harbin Food, Northeastern Chinese cuisine, Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, Wikitravel Harbin, Wikivoyage Harbin and Wikipedia Harbin. Learn more about the use of photos. To inform you about latest news most of the city, town or tourism websites offer a newsletter service and/or operate Facebook pages/Twitter accounts. In addition more and more destinations, tourist organizations and cultural institutions offer Apps for your Smart Phone or Tablet, to provide you with a mobile tourist guide (Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State - Weather report by weather.com - Global Passport Power Rank - Travel Risk Map - Democracy Index - GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank - Global Competitiveness Report - Corruption Perceptions Index - Press Freedom Index - World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index - UN Human Development Index - Global Peace Index - Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index). If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at comment@wingsch.net. Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.








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