China’s biggest ice sculpture festival is a sight to behold
China’s biggest ice sculpture festival is a sight to behold
Harbin is a large city in Heilongjiang Province; located further north than Vladivostok in Siberia, it suffers bitterly cold winters which sees the mercury regularly shrivelling down past the -25°C mark. With this comes a blanket of ice and snow, which is put to good use every winter as a mass of over six hundred sculptors descend on the city to compete in the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpting Festival. Its popularity increases year-on-year and is now recognised as one of the top tourist attractions in China, currently attracting over one million tourists over its one month run.
The festival has been running since 1963 despite an interlude of several years during Mao’s Cultural Revolution before being resumed in 1985. Since then the festival has gained international recognition and now ranks alongside similar festivals in Montréal, Canada and Saporro in Japan.
The festival takes place in two of Harbin’s main parks: Zaolin Park and Snow Park. Zaolin Park showcases ice lanterns which are made by freezing water inside various vessels and then carving the ice into many different formations to create dazzling illuminated displays. The lanterns on display at the festival have come a long way from the locals’ simple creations before the festival’s inception. Recent festivals have seen all manner of sculptures lit up at night in an amazing array of colour – creations such as lions, tigers, dragons, flowers and even ice waterfalls have featured, as have Thai temples and even suspension bridges. Dozens of installations serve to make the park look like a fairytale city at night-time and the throngs of tourists who arrive to view this spectacle are also entertained by nightly fireworks.
Over at the Snow Park in Harbin, competitions in snow sculpting take place. Most works of art span at least 50m and many more scale heights rivalling their subjects. The Egyptian Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower and Big Ben have all featured in past competitions. Also on offer at the Snow Park are giant snow mazes as well as ice climbing for anyone keen to try it.
For those willing to brave the freezing temperatures and long nights the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival holds something quite extraordinary, these temporary exhibitions of snow and ice serve to amaze visitors at every turning and the wintertime atmosphere of this spectacle is truly memorable.
