Icy beauty in Harbin
Visitors should bundle up for a stroll around the world's largest ice festival in Harbin, China. Events include sparkling cold art, ice swimming and frigid outdoor weddings.
Fire and ice
Celebratory fireworks mark the official opening of the International Ice and Snow Festival in Harbin, usually on January 5. Due to Siberian winds, temperatures in the city in Manchuria in northeastern China drop to -10 to -25 degrees Celsius (14 to -13 Fahrenheit) in winter — and below. Ideal conditions for the ice festival, which lasts until the end of February, depending on the weather.
Lit in candy colors
The city abounds with events and ice buildings. The most spectacular sculptures are located in two central exhibition areas, where visitors have to pay admission. One of the areas is even open at night and the frozen buildings are illuminated from the inside with bright LED lights. The Harbin Ice and Snow Festival is in its 36th year in 2020.
Awesome in ice
There is nothing that can't be recreated in ice — palaces, bridges and life-size cathedrals as well as larger-than-life figures. Built out of nothing but ice bricks, some towers are more than 50 meters high (more than 160 feet). Many buildings have ice slides, like a replica of the Great Wall of China years ago — fun not only for children.
Train to nowhere
If ever a railway seemed frozen in time, it's this huge ice replica. Visitors are not likely to see immobile trains in the city of Harbin, however — the metropolis is an important hub for politics, business, science and culture in northeastern China and a gateway to trade with Russia.
Short-lived art
The main attraction at this year's exhibition is meant to be this sculpture. Artists from a dozen countries have contributed works to the ice festival. Of course, their pieces have to be created on the festival grounds — and don't survive the summer. Some 170,000 cubic meters (6 million cubic feet) of ice have been used at the festival.
Artists and their helpers
The sculptors use chisels, ice axes and saws to form the snow and ice blocks. They need all the help they can get — more than 12,000 people create the sculptures over several weeks in multiple shifts.
Final touches
Not only buildings and monuments are made of ice —anything goes at the ice sculpture designers' competition. Who is the most skillful chiseler, who carves best of all? Above, an Indian artist adds the finishing touches to his artwork.
Ice farmers
Where does the ice for the artworks come from? Farmers who grow maize and soybeans in summer and whose fields are frozen in winter get the 400-kilogram (881-pound) ice blocks from the Songhua River and use a conveyor belt to transport the blocks. The farmers make about 32 cents per block, or about €64 ($71) in a 12-hour workday.
Don't fall into the water...
The ice farmers use vibrating saws to cut the frozen surface of the Songhua River into rectangles until it looks like a bar of ice chocolate. They have to be careful not to slip and fall into the icy water.
... unless you want to join the ice swimmers
Some visitors to the ice festival, on the other hand, can't wait to jump into the icy water, like the above participants in a swimming competition. Winter swimming in the Songhua River is also part of the snow and ice festival.
Braving the cold
You would think most swimmers want to get out of the water again as fast as they can. However, even if the water temperature is barely above zero degrees Celsius, the air is always colder. Much, much colder.
Frosty wedding
Icy romance: Bundled up in down coats, couples brave the temperatures to tie the knot at the festival. The couples above are standing in line for an ice and snow mass wedding. No trendy off-the-shoulder wedding gowns for these brides!