Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival

Harbin ice and snow sculptures festival is an International annual festival of all the cold things in Harbin, China. This festival demonstrates various ice sculptures created by various participants came from all around the world. Some of these sculptures such as Niagra falls sculpture even hold the Guinness world record for the largest sculpture ever, with more than 250 meters long and about 8.5 meters high. This festival officially starts from January 5 each year and lasts for about a month. This festival was first organized in 1963.

The festival is organized into different themes each year, such as "Olympic theme", "Prosperous China", "The Great wall of China", "Pyramids", "Castles", "Terra-Cotta warriors" and many other themes in the past years. There are also various activities held during the festivals for tourists, such as ice skating, skiing, and winter swimming etc.. The exhibition is organized in various parks and gardens, the main ones being Sun Island and Ice and Snow world. These parks are rebuild into newly designed ice buildings displaying the talents of various artists from around the world.

Origin and History

This festival originated in the Harbin's traditional ice show and garden party, during the winter season, that originated in 1963. However, due to Chinese cultural revolution, the festival was interrupted a number of times. However, during 1985, it was resumed once again at Zhaolin Park, where it was announced to be happening in 1985. This festival, in 2001, merged with Heilongjiang's International Ski festival, and became more famous since.

The ice festival is a competitive event, with competitors coming from all over the world- United States, Japan, Sri Lanka, Canada, France etc.. building one of the best ice statues ever, making the competition more harder and tougher. At nighttime, these sculptures are illuminated with a wide spectrum of light showers, making the festival an awesome light and snow show for the spectators. The location of Harbin makes is at southern Siberia, where the average winter temperature lying around -16.6 degree Celsius. Annual low temperatures of around -30 degrees are also not uncommon.

Fireworks light up the sky on various evenings, creating a beautiful display of lights and colors on land as well as on skies. Various slides, archery events, sports for tourists are also organized.

Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival