Harbin is China's winter capital. A fishing village on the Songhua River until the Russian-built Chinese Eastern Railway arrived around 1900, it boomed into a polyglot port city — at its peak home to 160,000 foreign residents from more than thirty nations, with consulates, cathedrals and bakeries to match — and the nickname "Eastern Moscow" stuck. That European layer survives in the baroque-and-Byzantine streetscape, while winter brings the reason most visitors come: the Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival, when the city turns river ice into lit-up palaces from late December through February. Come for the ice, stay for the sausage, the bread and the coldest, brightest fun you will ever have outdoors.
The full handbook is part of the paid series
You have read the free preview — the introduction and the route map. The complete handbook adds the day-by-day plan, tickets and transport, culture and etiquette, food, useful Chinese, and the dated source list.