THE HARBIN ICE AND SNOW FESTIVAL

The Harbin Ice and Snow Festival is held every winter in Harbin, a city in China. Harbin is located in the northeast of the country, so it recieves the cold Siberian wind, that's why this festival is held in this city, because it needs a cold weather to keep all the sculptures intact. 

Because yes, this is what this festival it's about: a snow and ice sculptures display.

This festival is based on a Chinese tradition that they have had for many years: the Ice lanterns. We could compare this to the Jack o' lanterns in Halloween, but instead of using a pumpkin, they used an ice block. They created the block using a bucket and placed a candle inside of it, and doing this they got a windproof lamp. 

Years later, they started to use this technique in their free time, to create beautiful sculptures. And this is more or less how the festival started, although it wasn't until 1963 when it became an actual festival. Then, after some years not being held because of the Cultural Revolution in China, it returned on 1984 as the official Harbin Ice and Snow Festival.

The festival officially starts on January 5th and lasts for a month, although usually it goes on for some more time. During this month there are plenty of exhibitions around the whole city, but the main areas that you have to visit if you go there during the festival are: Ice and Snow World, Zhaolin Park and The Sun Island Park.

Ice and Snow and Zhaolin Park are both areas full of ice sculptures, beautiful during the day and striking at night, because of the different colour lights they have inside. In these areas you can find all type of scultures: some of them based on famous buildings, such as the Egyptian Pyramids, the Great Wall or European churches; others based on nature elements, like flowers, waterfalls and also animals; others on fantastic elements from tales and legends, etc.



In the Sun Island Park you can find snow sculptures also representing all types of things.

It is the largest ice and snow festival in the world, and besides the activities related to this, nowadays during the festival there are plenty of other activities, such as alpine skiing, winter swimming in the Songhua River, fireworks, concerts and even fashion shows.