Harbin really doesn’t have many attractions, especially outside of winter, when there are even fewer places to go. The Siberian Tiger Park is a zoo located on the north bank of the Songhua River, adjacent to Sun Island. In 1986, with support from the Ministry of Forestry, the “China Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Center” was established at the Hengdaohezi breeding farm in Heilongjiang Province. Later, in order to better protect the endangered Siberian tigers and conduct further scientific research, the Heilongjiang Siberian Tiger Park was founded in 1996. By developing the tourism value of the Siberian tigers, it uses a “tigers supporting tigers” approach to fund and protect scientific research and rewilding training.
It’s actually more like a safari park, but only for tigers. Upon entering, you first need to take a tour bus. There are two types: regular buses and thrill buses. On the thrill bus, visitors sit in the middle row facing the glass on both sides. The glass has holes through which you can stick out meat to feed the tigers. This is the park’s main recommendation—after all, selling meat brings in extra money, and it’s much more interactive. The park features 10 viewing areas: the rewilding area, adult tiger area, sub-adult tiger area, breeding tiger area, liger area, African lion area, tiger king area, cub area, walking area, and tiger-viewing platform.
At the entrance, there are chubby tiger merchandise items you can pose with for photos, plus a bunch of vendors selling Siberian tiger souvenirs. The merchandise is quite cute, and there’s a whole row of stalls, but at the exit there’s only one tiny shop….
Everything before the walking area is viewed from the bus. To sell meat, the drivers will also give some commentary—for example, pointing out a few internet-famous tigers. Since there are many zones ahead, you don’t need to start feeding right away; you can wait until later, otherwise you’ll run out of meat~~ Also, if the weather is bad, especially when it rains, visibility through the windows isn’t great. It’s fine for looking, but hard to take photos.
In the walking area, you can see some other animals, such as bears, which can also be fed. To get a few bites, the bears even have to stand up and spin around—it’s really sad to watch.
From the tiger-viewing platform further back, you can look down from above to see the tigers being fed.
Further on, there’s live chicken feeding and the like—all paid activities for visitors.
Overall, this Siberian Tiger Park has decent interactive elements, but compared to a wildlife park, the variety of animals is quite limited and the area is much smaller. If you really have nothing else to do in Harbin, it’s still worth experiencing.
Since I genuinely didn’t know where else to go, I also visited two free attractions: the Hayao No. 6 Print Museum and Chinese Baroque. The Hayao No. 6 Print Museum was converted from the former office building of the Hayao No. 6 Pharmaceutical Factory and is dubbed the “Louvre of Northeast China.” It mainly resembles the Louvre in architectural style, but in reality it’s quite rough—you’d be better off looking at Global Harbor. The prints inside make up only a small part; it’s mostly an exhibition hall introducing the Hayao Group and selling medicine~~ And because it’s free, it’s absolutely packed with people…
As for Chinese Baroque, in the late 19th century Harbin became a trading port due to the Chinese Eastern Railway. In the 1920s, local capitalists in Daowai imitated the Western-style buildings of Daoli District, incorporating native decorative elements to form this style. It was named by Japanese scholar Yasuhiko Nishizawa. The building facades feature Baroque curved shapes and ornate carvings, while the decorative elements blend Chinese auspicious motifs such as bats, pomegranates, and peonies. The floor plans continue the traditional Chinese courtyard “shop in front, residence in back” commercial-residential structure, creating a unique spatial character that is “Western on the outside, Chinese on the inside.”
The Chinese Baroque Historical and Cultural Block is said to be one of the larger and better-preserved Chinese Baroque architectural complexes in China, though it’s showing its age. There’s an underground parking garage, but only a very small part of the entire area feels lively; the rest has average foot traffic, and the shops aren’t as distinctive as those on Central Street.
The main road should be Nan’erdao Street, which is only about 350 meters long. Besides the shops along the main road, many others are located in the adjacent courtyards, including some small cafes and restaurants. Overall, it’s just okay for strolling around.
There is, however, a shop selling Siberian tiger merchandise called Hu Chao Chao, which is pretty interesting.
Overall, regarding these two places—if you really have nowhere else to go, you can check them out, but if you have other plans, there’s no need to make a special trip.
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