30th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival China

 

The annual Harbin International Ice & Snow Sculpture Festival was originated from local Harbiner traditional ice lantern show garden party in winter since 1963. It had been interrupted for a number of years during the Cultural Revolution but had been resumed and announced as an annual event at Zhaolin Park on January 5 in 1985.

In 2001, Harbin Ice Festival was merged with Heilongjiang International Ski Festival and got its new formal name China Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival. The 30th festival is to hold in January 2014.

Harbin  is located in Northeast China under the direct influence of the cold winter wind from Siberia.The average temperature in summer is 21.2 degrees Celsius, -16.8 degrees Celsius in winter. Annual low temperatures below -35C are not uncommon.

The 30th festival is to hold in January 2014 .Officially, the festival starts January 5 and lasts one month. However the exhibits often open earlier and stay longer, weather permitting.

The 30th Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival in China’s Heilongjiang province opened Jan. 5,2014 and lasts for weeks, drawing Chinese and foreign visitors. Nearly 10,000 people were involved in making the sculptures, which are fashioned from huge ice blocks cut from a local frozen river and blocks of man-made snow, and made to resemble huge buildings, snow maidens and other structures, some of them lit up fancifully at night.

 

The Harbin festival is the largest ice and snow festival in the world and other such festivals include -

• Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival

• Canada's Quebec City winter Carnival and

• Norway's Ski Festival