Colorful
The ice festival begins in China’s “Ice City”.
A participant in the competition works on an ice sculpture at the Harbin Ice-Snow World. photo
© Wang Jianwei/XinHua/dpa
Colorful, frosty and sometimes gigantic: the ice festival in Harbin has been a popular winter attraction in China for decades. This time the anticipation seemed to be high even before the official start.
With graceful sculptures made of ice and frosty temperatures well below freezing, that is Ice festival opened in the northern Chinese city of Harbin. At the official start of the 35th edition of the International Competition, visitors could see replicas of various animals or representations of dancers. However, the ice sculptors did not need to fear that the works of art would melt in partly sunny weather: the thermometer in the city center, which is located high in the north of China and has around 5.5 million inhabitants, showed values of up to minus 25 degrees during the day.
Harbin is known for the Ice Festival. Even before the start of the official competition, according to official figures, 3.05 million tourists flocked to the city over the days off at the turn of the year. The large ice and snow world is particularly popular; in addition to sculptures, there are also meter-high replicas of famous buildings made of thick, shaped ice blocks with colorful lighting. But there are also numerous ice sculptures in the rest of the city, for which the artists sometimes use a chainsaw to shape the ice blocks.
The ice festival usually lasts a month and is an important tourist magnet for the capital of Heilongjiang Province. Many Chinese and international visitors travel to Harbin during this time.