Established
in 1985 as a simple festival, the Ice and Snow Festival has now transformed into
one of the biggest winter attractions in China and the fourth largest ice and
snow festival in the world, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's
Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway's Ski Festival. In the evenings, the sculptures
are lit up and ice-lantern park touring activities are held in many parks throughout
the city. A number of other winter events take place in the city at the same time
as the festival: fireworks display, ice hockey competitions, winter swimming,
skiing and speed skating events, football games on expansive snow grounds, poetry
jamboree, and ice and snow cinematic festival. Each year for a month in early
January to early February, the North Eastern Chinese city of Harbin hosts the
spectacular Ice Festival. During this time, the city is full of impressive and
artistic ice and snow sculptures, carvings, and buildings in parks and on frozen
rivers. World famous monuments like grand cathedrals, pyramids, Potala Palace
and the Great Wall are all carved out of ice, in spectacularly giant sizes!
Being
the cradle of Jin and Qing Dynasties, Harbin is the largest of all the capitals
in China and is located in northern Manchuria just across the border from Russian
Siberia. The Harbin district is decorated with Chinese temple architecture and
different western religion churches with peculiar design of Renaissance, Baroque
and Byzantine. It is this scenery, which creates a feel of medieval Europe as
you walk down the street. Furthermore, the International Ice and Snow Festival,
Summer Concert and other international activities give Harbin a particular fascination
for everyone.
Harbin
is known as a Paradise of Ice and Snow and is famous for its dazzling outdoor
winter artwork. The art of ice-and-snow sculpture made its debut in Harbin thirty
years ago, thanks to the intelligence of artists and their efforts to add color
to the lives of the local residents by taking advantage of the northern winter
weather.
Thousands
of exquisitely-made ice lanterns, ice carvings and snow sculptures grace the snow-covered
parks, public squares and major streets, turning the city into a dreamlike world
of pure whiteness and gleaming crystal. These ice and snow art works can be as
small as a mouse or as big as a bus. The designs range from life-size human figures,
animals and flowers to towering castles, delicate pagodas and many other ingenious
creations. Ice sculptures, made from blocks of ice chain-sawed from the Songhua
River, have represented such things as the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of
China, the Eiffel Tower and an onion-domed Russian church. These sculptures fill
the city square and glow from the neon tubes of purple, pink, blue and green that
shine from inside.
Photos:
BBC World News - Asia/Pacific 2002-2003
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