Hey, guys! Finally, it's your HARBIN!
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0:00 Intro
1:40 Central Street (or Zhongyang Street)
52:13 West Red Square Shopping Mall
1:18:10 Around Harbin Railway Station
1:30:45 Around Harbin Grand Theater
1:53:50 Sun Island
2:46:30 Harbin Pedestrian Railway Bridge
3:10:48 Historic Old Street Night Tour
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This is Harbin, a city in China that was built by the Russians.
Harbin, a city in northeast China, was founded by Russian settlers in the 1900s.
The city is nicknamed "Little Moscow" for its Orthodox-style architecture.
Today, remnants of its Russian history can be seen mostly in the city's trade, food, and tourist attractions.
Although Harbin is an economic and cultural hub in China, its streets are reminscent of European ones: Russian Orthodox churches and neoclassic buildings are landmarks in its city center.
The city was founded by settlers in the late 1900s.
Now, the city of over six million people comprises of mostly Han Chinese, the largest ethnic group in China. Remnants of Russian influence remain in the city today.
"Russian culture is not just in terms of its physical architecture, it's quite embedded in our lifestyle as well," Shiran Geng, a Harbin-born PhD candidate at Australia's Victoria University told us. Geng co-wrote a research paper on the city's Russian influences and urban planning.
"It's not until I went travelling in Europe and Russia that I realized many of the things that we've been eating are actually Russian influenced," she added.
Harbin is the largest city in northeastern China, covering an area of 53,100 square kilometers (around 20,463 square miles), slightly smaller than the state of West Virginia.
The city is the capital of Heilongjiang province, the northernmost province in China.
The province shares a border with Russia that stretches almost 3,000 kilometers.
It's thanks to Russian construction projects like the railway that Harbin became an important industrial city in China in the 1950s, according to a paper by professors from the Harbin Institute of Technology.
At Sun Island, where the famous Harbin snow festival is held, a "Russian Style Town" was created to offer tourists a localized experience of being in Russia.
However, Hengyi Zhao, a 26-year-old Harbin native, told us the tourist attractions are not indicative of what life looks like in the city at large.
"We don't have many Russian writings [on the buildings] in the city now, only those in the [tourist] attraction zone to make our Russian style stronger for travelers," Zhao said.
Russian Orthodox churches like the Saint Sophia Cathedral are some of Harbin's most prominent landmarks.
The cathedral was built in 1907 and was the center of spiritual life for 100,000 Russian settlers. But after Russian immigrants left, many churches were no longer used as religious sites.
The cathedral was converted into a military installation by the Japanese in World War II, according to SixthTone. Today, the churches have become a tourist attraction.
"Some of them have been renovated or reused as galleries, museums, or tourist attractions," said Geng. "They are no longer in use [as churches]."
Russian food like sourdough bread, called "khleb," smoked sausage, and borscht are commonly eaten in Harbin, per the city's official website.
"We have a specific diet," Geng said. "We do like to eat bread, which is not very common [in] other parts of China."
Local dishes are also influenced by the broader northeastern Chinese cuisine, like "disanxian" - sauteed potatoes with green pepper and eggplant, and stewed chicken with mushrooms.
Today, Harbin is trying to balance its Russian history and its Chinese identity.
While many historical landmarks like churches are preserved, others are being demolished to "make room for expanding roads and cookie-cutter high-rise blocks," reported The New York Times.
But the Russian structures that do remain are bound to remain part of the city's landscape for years to come.
"It's a good balance of the occasional sort of Russian-influenced architecture," Geng said of the blend of modern buildings and Russian-style landmarks.
"They have been carefully preserved," she added. "So I don't see them being demolished anytime soon."
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#Harbin
#Heilongjiang
#IceCity