Harbin

Harbin is the capital of Heilongjiang province in northeastern China, on the south bank of the Songhua River. Each winter the city holds an ice and snow festival with castles and sculptures carved from blocks of river ice and lit from within.

A fishing village stood on the river until 1898, when Russia began to build the Chinese Eastern Railway across Manchuria and made Harbin its headquarters. A European city of churches, theaters and cafes grew up around the railway, and Jewish and Polish communities settled beside the Russian one. Its European streets earned Harbin the nickname Paris of the East. Saint Sophia Cathedral, a Russian Orthodox church with a green onion dome, was finished in the early 1930s and houses an exhibition on the history of the city. Central Street, a pedestrian road paved with stone blocks, keeps shops and hotels in Art Nouveau and baroque styles.

Harbin Brewery was founded in 1900 by Jan Wróblewski, a Polish brewer, and makes Harbin Beer, the oldest beer brand in China. Harbin Electric, based in the city, builds steam and hydroelectric turbines with generators for power stations in China and abroad. Harbin Pharmaceutical Group, also based in the city, makes antibiotics and medicines sold without prescription. Harbin red sausage, a smoked sausage of Lithuanian origin, is sold in the delicatessens of the old Russian quarter.

The Harbin Institute of Technology, founded in the 1920s as a school for railway engineers, trains engineers for China's space program. The Siberian Tiger Park, north of the river, keeps Amur tigers in large enclosures for breeding and study.