Harbin
(Ha'erbin), capital of Heilongjiang, China's northernmost
province, is a place of many contradictions. Travelers are faced with
frequently cold and inhospitable climates, but comforted by a warm and
friendly population, increasing huge and stark skyscrapers, but also
winding streets of quaint, colonial architecture, and impressive Siberian
Tiger conservation policies that are somewhat offset by
hunting grounds where a variety of animals are killed for pleasure.
These contradictory scenes continue back in time, so that the history
of Harbin is one of turbulence and economic prosperity.
Nowadays this old Chinese outpost is a
place not overly visited by travelers, despite the popular Ice
Lantern Festival and the many other good reasons to visit. Anyone
interested in history, Russian or Japanese architecture, skiing,
tigers, or traveling on the Trans-Siberian Railway
could do a lot worse than Harbin.
The city first came into being with the
settlement, in 1097, of the Nazhen nationality. The place then was a
natural, and cold, fishing area, situated right on the Songhua River.
By the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368AD) the area was renamed Haerbin,
literally meaning "where the fishing nets are dried".
It was later in the nineteenth century,
however, that the city really began to thrive, and when the Russian
influence, that was to remain and heavily dominate Harbin's history,
began to take a hold. The Russian Tsar and Qing court agreed, in 1896,
to the signing of a contract that granted the latter the right to
build a railway from Dalian, through Harbin, to Vladivostok. By 1898,
the city had become a Russian concession, with its own powerful
Tsarist police force, as the Tsar continued to enforce his colonial
plans for Manchuria, plans that were strengthened by the completion of
the rail link in 1904. The Tsar was finally thwarted by the
Russo-Japanese War (1904-05) that ended with a shock victory for the
belligerent and rapidly militarized Japan. The Japanese took over the
railway. The city then swung between these two nations, the Russians
returning in force to the city in 1917, mostly White Russians fleeing
the newly established Bolshevik state, the Japanese taking
control in 1932 as a part of their Manchukuo invasion, and the Soviets
retaking the city in 1945 and remaining dominant here for almost ten
years.
It was not until after the Cultural
Revolution (when factional fighting made it almost impossible for
anything to get done) that the city returned to its forte of rapid
economic growth. Presently the population, about 3 million in the
urban area, are concentrating on tourism, trading, heavy industry and
some of the heaviest drinking in China...and the Russians are back in
force.
The city now commemorates both historical
trauma, some of the darkest pages of China's history are represented
including Japanese atrocities at the Japanese
Germ Warfare Experimental Base Museum and the many serious floods
at the Flood
Control Monument, as well as historical triumph, including the
great Russian architecture in the northern Daoli
District. For those a little daunted or unimpressed by these,
there is skiing, hunting, leisure resorts on Sun
Island Park and a Siberian Tiger Park for pleasure.
