Harbin - China's Paris of the Orient

Harbin was once a small snow-bound village, 1000 ks N.E of Beijing. In 1898 a city was established because the Russians needed to build the Chinese Eastern Railway. This railway line was to be an extension of the Trans-Siberian Railway, greatly reducing the travelling time across northern inner Manchuria to the Russian port of Vladivostok. I wonder if the planners saw any problem in having a Russian railway line, using Russian currency, Russian timetable, Russian passports and Russian equipment going through a foreign country!

The Harbin section of the Chinese Eastern Railway was built 1898-1902.

It seems not. In 1896 China gave permission for the railway to be built and for Russia to control a strip of land along both sides of the long railway. In a very short time, some 70,000 Russians and other citizens had moved to Harbin – railway workers, engineers, architects, shop keepers, teachers and road builders. By 1910, they had built a fully functioning, lovely European city de novo. Those who did well built themselves lovely villas and art nouveau apartment houses.

European architecture, Zhongyang Dajie (High St)  in Harbin's old quarter

China Travel proudly reports that so many businesses were doing well that Harbin established itself as an international metropolis, a the centre of north eastern China. The Russians established a top class educational system for their citizens and published Russian language journals and newspapers. Other nations set up hundreds of commercial and banking companies in Harbin. The surrounding area had enormous reserves of gold, diamonds and timber, providing a reliable basis for new industries to be developed.

Saint Sophia Russian Orthodox Church, built in 1907.

The city became a centre of commerce, of course, but also of religion and culture. The Russian Orthodox Church of Saint Sophia was given a majestic front with large doors and great arches. Completed in 1907, the traditional Russian architecture would have felt at home in Moscow or St Petersburg.

Because of its rich cultural life and ornate, European-inspired architecture, this Paris of the Orient became the City of Music.

Among the people who flocked to Harbin, Russian Jews arrived in their thousands. It is difficult to tell if they arrived because the Russian authorities were encouraging shop keepers, doctors and small business owners to move to Harbin, and so Jews were likely to be recruited. Or if the horrific pogroms in Eastern Europe forced young Jewish families, in particular, to look abroad for safely. What is certain is that in Harbin, Jewish citizens enjoyed all the economic, political and residential rights unavailable in Czarist Russia. And of course these rights were guaranteed (to all citizens) when the Soviet Union acquired the railroad zone later on.

Jewish cemetery and model of Old Synagogue, 1909

Jews in Harbin were furriers, bakers, shopkeepers, café owners, teachers and musicians, timber mill owners and factory workers. They built a moderate sized prayer centre, Old Synagogue, in 1909. This Synagogue was reopened in June 2014 after 12 months of renovations. The women’s gallery on the second floor, the men’s prayer hall and rabbi’s bimah platform have all been restored, complete with elaborate decorations that combine Jewish and Chinese symbols. It is now a concert theatre.

When the community became bigger after the Russian Revolution, they built a larger prayer centre, New Synagogue, in 1921 (now a museum). The community also built its own school, hospital, music centre, sports organisation and welfare facilities.

By the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Harbin started to look like a safe haven for about 150,000 refugees, largely White Russians, making the city the largest Russian community outside the Soviet Union. And the Jewish community grew and grew. Between 1918 and 1930, 20 Jewish newspapers and periodicals were published in Harbin, mostly written in Russian. Russian was the shared language for all ex-pats, as well as for their Chinese business associates and employees.

I don’t know much about Japan’s invasion of Manchuria in Sept 1931. But I do know that the Chinese army were forced to retreat from Harbin after bombing from Japanese aircraft. In 1935, the Soviet Union sold the Chinese Eastern Railway to the Japanese, which resulted in the first exodus of Russian emigres from Manchuria, in general and Harbin, in particular. Many ex-pat Russians went back to the Soviet Union, or to Shanghai.

New Synagogue, 1921, now a Jewish museum

Nor is it clear what happened to Harbin after WW2. Clearly the city's administration was transferred to the Chinese People's Liberation Army in April 1946 and became part of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. Within a couple of years, the rest of the European community quickly returned to their home countries or emigrated to Australia, the Americas or Israel.

Today Harbin's population is 10 million people, making it China's 8th largest city. Yet despite two generations (1896-1946) of Russian culture and development, nothing remains except the European architecture. Visit Harbin's old quarter today, near the Songhua River,  and you will find many intact baroque and byzantine buildings that were constructed by the Russians.

Useful reading includes: Passage Through China: the Jewish communities of Harbin, Tientsin and Shanghai, written by Irene Eber. This catalogue accompanied the 1986 exhibition held in Tel Aviv’s Museum of the Jewish Diaspora. And The Jews in China by Pan Guang, published by China Inter-continental Press in 2005. This book provides an extensive, mainly photographic record, with one chapter on Harbin.

map of the Chinese Eastern Railway 
to Vladivostok and Beijing, via Harbin