The ice festival, a few miles away from the snow festival, is anything but dull and colorless. Crowds flocking to the entrance are greeted by dance music booming in the distance, as if at an outdoor pop concert. And bright neon colors shine everywhere, buried within huge blocks of ice forming structures as high as thirty meters, such as this huge structure beyond the entryway. You can just make out people standing atop its blue and red stairway.
Even the sunsets in Harbin look cold. Though only mid-afternoon, the sun was setting over the snow festival and the temperature was falling even further below freezing. But the coming darkness was actually good news, because it meant that the ice festival was about to begin.
I was surprised to discover this sculpture of a Native American sitting in the frozen northeast of China; sure enough, I read on the sign that a Canadian team sculpted this entry. Chinese teams had many sculptures at the festival as well, off in another section, but a vast majority didn't measure up to these amazing works.
Most of the sculptures appearing at the snow festival are competitive entries. Each team starts with a cube of packed snow that appears to measure about three meters on a side, and then starts carving away. Teams come in from all over the world - Russia, Japan, Canada, France, even South Africa. Part of the fun is guessing the nationality of the team, based on their sculpture's artistic style, before reading the signs. I believe this was a Russian entry.
Snow and ice sculpture in Harbin dates back to Manchu times, but the first organized show was held in 1963, and the annual festival itself only started in 1985. Since then, the festival has grown into a massive event, bringing in over a million tourists from all over the world every winter. The sculptures have become more elaborate and artistic over time; this bear and cub are just one small part of a fifty-meter-wide mural sculpture.
The temperature in Harbin reaches forty below zero, both Fahrenheit and centigrade, and stays below freezing nearly half the year. The city is actually further north than notoriously cold Vladivostok, Russia, just 300 miles away. So what does one do here every winter? Hold an outdoor festival, of course! Rather than suffer the cold, the residents of Harbin celebrate it, with an annual festival of snow and ice sculptures and competitions. This is the amazing sculpture made of snow greeting visitors to the snow festival in 2003.
