The Ice Lantern Festival, commonly known as Harbin Ice Festival (25/12/2016 – 25/02/2017), was the precursor to the current festival, which started in 1963 but was put on hold during the Cultural Revolution.
A few hundred years ago, during the Qing Dynasty, local fishermen would hollow out pails of ice and put candles in them for the light at night. Over time, lanterns went from being strictly functional to being an aesthetic fixture.
Today it’s a combination of art and science that creates the elaborate and ornate ice and snow spectacle. Deionized water is used on some pieces to produce ice as transparent as glass, and multicoloured lights add multi-dimensional depth and beauty.
Over the course of a hurried half-month, more than 15,000 people carve (by hand or laser) more than 113,500 cubic meters of ice. From scaled-down versions of the Forbidden City and the Great Wall to simpler student-created pieces, the sheer volume of beauty is staggering.
