The spirit of the far east

Part 5 of 5 : Chitá- Beijing

AUTHORS
Fernanda Insua | Alpinismonline Staff
Carlos Eduardo Gonzalez | Alpinismonline Staff
Production date : August 2019

COVER PHOTO : THE BEIJING TERMINAL
The great capital of the Far East opens its doors to the Trans Mongolian. An ancient city closes this story of a railway that crosses the depths of an ancient world. We traveled more than eight thousand kilometers from Moscow. The best closing for the longest and most legendary railway in the world.

A journey on the longest and most famous train in the world

The Rossiya. A train with more than a hundred years of history, where different cultures mix along its more than nine thousand kilometers of route. The Trans-Siberian is not just a tourist route. For decades it has been the only means of communication in a country with six time zones, a bridge between Europe and the Pacific. We take you on a dream trip. Let’s go to the Rossiya!Un viaje por el tren más largo y famoso del mundo

What MONGOLIA left behind…

…it was surprising. A country with a thousand-year-old spirit bordered by two giants with no less tradition. The Trans-Mongolian crosses all that history and shows us one of the most surprising beauties: The Gobi Desert.

The Gobi combines landscape with climate and extreme conditions. From the windows of the Rossiya you could travel across much of that vast expanse on your way to Beijing.

And now, we leave the Trans-Mongolian behind and return to Beijing but from another point, to immerse ourselves in the spirit of the Far East via the Tran Manchurian.

Let’s go to Manchuria then!

Chitá

The «Rossiya» train leaves from the central station in Chita, built at the beginning of the 20th century, accompanying the birth of the Trans-Siberian Railway. We are now heading east and boarding the Trans-Manchurian.

A historic railway line running through the Chinese region of Manchuria connecting with the Harbin-Manzhouli line. The line was built by Imperial Russia under concession from the Chinese Empire, and connected the port of Vladivostok with the inland city of Chita in the Russian Far East. The southern branch of the Trans-Manchurian, later transformed into the South Manchurian Railway, became a source of conflict and casus belli leading to the Russo-Japanese War, the Sino-Soviet Conflict of 1929, and the Mukden Incident which led to the Japanese invasion of Manchuria.

In 1896 China granted a construction concession across northern Inner Manchuria under the supervision of Deputy Minister of Public Works Xu Jingcheng. Work on the Trans-Manchurian began in July 1897 on the Tarskaya (east of Chita)-Hailar-Harbin-Nikolsk-Ussuriski section, and accelerated dramatically after Russia concluded a twenty-five-year lease of Liaodong with China in 1898. Officially, traffic on the line began in November 1901, but regular passenger traffic from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok via the Trans-Siberian Railway did not begin until July 1903.

In 1898, construction of an 880-kilometer branch line—most of which later formed the South Manchuria Railway—began at Harbin, heading south through eastern Manchuria, then along the Liaodong Peninsula, to the port town of Lüshun, which Russia was strengthening and developing as a first-class strategic naval base and preparing as a coaling point for the Far Eastern Fleet and merchant marine.

The railway was essentially completed in 1903, shortly before the opening of another milestone of the railway industry, the Circum-Baikal Railway, which runs along Lake Baikal. Until the Circum-Baikal section was completed (1904-1905; double track in 1914), goods transported by the Trans-Siberian Railway had to be transported by ferry for almost a hundred kilometres across the lake (from Port Baikal to Mysovaya).

The Trans-Manchurian became important in international relations. After the First Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, Russia was granted the right to build the China Eastern Railway in Manchuria. It stationed a large army in the region and occupied northern Manchuria, which worried the Japanese. Russia pressured China to grant it a «monopoly right» in Manchuria, which in turn led to an alliance with Japan and the United States against Russia.

During the Russo-Japanese War, Russia lost both the Liaodong Peninsula and much of the southern branch of Manchuria to Japan. The railway line from Changchun to Lüshun—transferred to Japanese control—became the South Manchuria Railway.

During the Russian Civil War (1917–1924) the Russian part of the Trans-Manchurian Railway came under the administration of the White Army. After 1924, the Soviet Union and China jointly administered the northern part of the Trans-Manchurian Railway, while Japan retained control of the southern branch line. The Sino-Soviet conflict of 1929 was fought during the administration of the northern part of the Trans-Manchurian Railway.

Following the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, Soviet diplomacy adopted a conciliatory attitude towards Japan – due to the military weakness of the Soviet Army in the region – and even offered to sell the Japanese government its share of the Trans-Manchurian Railway. Finally, on 23 March 1935, the sale of Soviet rights to the Chinese Eastern Railway was signed in Tokyo for 140 million yen. For Japan, the purchase was doubly successful, because Moscow had not consulted China about the sale of its railway rights – which meant de facto recognition of Japanese control of Manchukuo.

In August 1945 the Trans-Manchurian Railway was again under joint Soviet-Chinese control, after the Soviet Union had expelled the Japanese and taken over Manchuria. Reversing Russia’s losses in 1904-1905, after World War II the Soviet government insisted on occupying the Liaodong Peninsula, but allowed joint control of the southern branch with China; the whole was called the «Chinese Changchun Railway.» In 1952 the Soviet Union transferred all its rights to the Chinese Changchun Railway free of charge to the People’s Republic of China.

Karymskaya

It is a town and administrative center of Karymsky District in Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia. It has a population of approximately 13,000.

It was founded in 1761 by the baptized Tungus («karym») Gantimurov family. After 1822, the settlement was subordinate to the Urulginskaya foreign council. Originally, the village of Karymskoye was on the left bank of the Ingoda River. After the flood of 1897, the inhabitants moved to the railway station, built in 1897 on a high place. The village consisted of 4 short streets with 92 different types of buildings, including a primary school, a resettlement center, several shops and a bathhouse. It has been the administrative center of Karymsky district since 1926, and received the status of an urban locality in 1935. In 1982, the monument «The Military Glory» was opened in honor of the soldiers who died in World War II.

The Karym Electromechanical Plant and the Karymsky Integrated Forestry Plant are located in the city. There is also a butter factory, railway enterprises. departments, road repair construction directorate and a bakery plant.

Zabaikalsk

Zabaikalsk is a town in Zabaikalsky Krai, the administrative center of the Zabaikalsky district. It is located on the Russian-Chinese border, opposite Manzhouli.

The Russian-Chinese AH6 highway passes through the town. The once disputed island of Abagaitu lies about 100 km to the east in the Argun River.

The town was founded in 1904 as a station on the Trans-Manchurian Railway. A border guard detachment was stationed here from 1924. After the Sino-Soviet conflict in 1929, the station was renamed Otpor.

Until the mid-1930s, Razyead 86/Otpor was of little importance as a station, as all border formalities were carried out at Matsiyevskaya station (further inside Russia) and at Manzhouli on the Chinese side of the border. The station was enlarged in the mid-1930s following the sale of the railway on the Chinese side by the USSR to Manchukuo and its conversion from Russian to Chinese gauge.

For this reason, Otpor became the last station with Russian gauge, i.e. it was the gauge changer station. It was very important in 1945, as one of the bases for the Russian invasion of Manchuria, after which the railway was converted to the Russian gauge. The importance of the station was not altered, as it was the main railway communication route between Russia and Communist China. At the request of the Chinese government, in 1958, the town was renamed Zabaikalsk (The city beyond Baikal).

Zabaykalsk/Manzhouli is one of three direct connections between the Russian and Chinese railways (the other two are in Primorsky Krai further east, although much of the traffic between China and Russia goes via Mongolia).

The line that leads here starts from the Trans-Siberian Railway at the Karymskaya junction, east of Chita. Originally (until 1916) this line was part of the main railway route between Moscow and Vladivostok, which cut through Manchuria on the old Trans-Manchurian. After the opening of the modern Trans-Siberian route, which lies entirely in Russian territory, this southern branch through China was limited to being a connecting route to China. The A166 highway from Chita also passes through the town.

Manzhouli: first city in Chinese territory.

Manzhouli

It is China’s busiest land port of entry. It covers an area of ​​696.3 square kilometers and has a population of over 300,000.

It is located next to Hulun Lake, on the border with Russia. In fact, its name comes from Russian and means Manchuria. Hulun Lake is the fifth largest freshwater lake in the People’s Republic of China with a surface area of ​​2,600 square kilometres and an average depth of only five metres.

In ancient times, the area was inhabited by many tribes living in Manchuria including the Donghu, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Khitan, Jurchen and Mongol peoples. During the decline of the last dynasty of China, the Russian Empire forced the House of Qing (1644-1912) to cede the territory of Inner Manchuria in the Treaty of Aigun of 1858.

In 1901, the Chinese Far East Railway was completed in accordance with the secret Sino-Russian Treaty of 1896, linking Siberia, northeastern China (inland Manchuria), and the Russian Far East. A settlement then formed around Manchzhuriya station, the first stop within Manchuria for the Russians. This was the beginning of the modern city of Manzhouli.

In 1905, Manzhouli was designated as a trading center of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of 1905, greatly increasing the city’s growth. In 1908, a customs house was established in Manzhouli and it was granted city status. With Hsingan and the surrounding areas, Manzhouli came under Japanese control in 1931, and was part of the Manchukuo Empire from 1932 to 1945. It became part of Inner Mongolia under Chinese sovereignty from 1946.

In 1992, Manzhouli became one of the first land border cities opened by the People’s Republic of China. Since then, it has experienced a boom as a hub for border trade between China and Russia.

It has a rather dry monsoon climate, with a humid continental influence, with winter temperatures that can reach -40 °C. However, there are more than 55% of sunny days in each month, and more than three quarters of the annual rainfall occurs from June to August.

Taowa Square is the first place to visit as it is the only square with Matryoshka dolls in all of China and covers an area of ​​3200 m2. It is an original and entertaining themed square, combining Chinese, Russian and Mongolian elements. Its centrepiece is a huge Russian doll about 30 metres high, the largest Russian doll in the world. On the west side there is a museum painted in blue and gold which is worth a visit as it is the Museum of Russian Art which has a collection of Russian and Western murals and over 2000 unique objects in Mongolia.

Harbin

It is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang Province in the historical Manchuria region of the People’s Republic of China. It is a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications center in northeast China, as well as an important industrial base of the nation. It is the eighth largest urban area in China.

Harbin, which literally means “a place for drying fishing nets” in Manchu, grew from a small rural settlement on the Songhua River—the main tributary of the Amur—to become one of the largest cities in northeast China. Founded in 1898 with the arrival of the Chinese Eastern Railway, the city first prospered as a region inhabited by an overwhelming majority of immigrants from the Russian Empire. Harbin has the most extremely cold winters among major Chinese cities, and is known as the city of ice, as it hosts the notable winter ice sculpture festival. In addition to being well known for its historic Russian heritage, the city serves as an important gateway in modern-day Sino-Russian trade, containing a sizable Russian diaspora population. In the 1920s, the city was considered the fashion capital of China, as new designs from Paris and Moscow arrived here before Shanghai. The city was voted the most touristic city in China by the China National Tourism Administration in 2004. On June 22, 2010, Harbin was named «Music City» by UNESCO.

Human settlements in the Harbin area date back to at least 2200 BC (late Stone Age). It was formerly known as Pokai.

The modern city of Harbin actually came into being in 1898 with the construction of the Trans-Manchurian Railway, promoted by Tsarist Russia, which linked the Russian city of Vladivostok with Dalian, as a shortcut to the Trans-Siberian Railway, which ran north of the Sino-Russian border line. The Russians enjoyed extraterritorial rights in the areas surrounding the railway line under construction. During the period 1898-1932, the city was a unique cosmopolitan enclave, a refuge for White Russian emigrants and also a prosperous Jewish colony. During the Russian Civil War in 1918, members of the White Army captured the city.

In February 1932, Japanese troops occupied the city. The Soviet army recaptured it in August 1945. After a brief period under Kuomintang control, the city passed into the hands of the People’s Liberation Army in April 1946.

The Russian influence is still present in the city today, even in the culinary style of the area. Another sign of this influence is in the shops. Harbin is the only place where the Chinese can buy such typical Russian products as vodka or matryoshka dolls. In Harbin, there were once 15 Orthodox churches and two Russian cemeteries, but after the Cultural Revolution, only ten churches survive, and only one has regular religious services.

The city is known as the Moscow of the East, as much of its architecture dates back to the Russian period. The most notable is the Orthodox Church of St. Sophia. Its construction took nine years and was completed in 1932. Today it has been converted into a museum displaying the different influences that have been exerted on Harbin’s architecture. Some of the city’s residents felt that the Church of St. Sophia «disturbed» the local feng shui, so they donated money to build a Buddhist monastery, the Ji Le Temple.

Harbin is located next to several major cities, such as Changchun, Dalian and Shenyang. While Dalian is considered a regional maritime transport hub and Shenyang a financial centre, Harbin is working to become a key regional trade hub. The city is located in one of the fastest growing regions and has a number of advantages, such as abundant natural resources, good transportation system and significant human resources.

The soil in Harbin, called «black soil» is some of the most nutrient-rich in all of China, making it valuable for growing food and textile-related crops. As a result, Harbin is China’s base for staple grain production and an ideal location for setting up agricultural businesses. The city also has several industries such as light, textile, medicine, food, automobile, metallurgy, electronics, building materials and chemicals. Harbin is known as the energy capital of manufacturing; hydraulic and thermal power equipment.

Harbin is the second largest railway hub in northeast China, after Shenyang. The Harbin Railway Bureau was the first in the country. There are 5 railway lines to Beijing. In addition, Harbin has a high-speed rail line to Dalian. In 2009, construction began on the new Harbin West Railway Station with 18 platforms, located on the southwestern outskirts of the city. In December 2012, the first high-speed train in China was opened, running through regions with extremely low winter temperatures, from Harbin to Dalian where temperatures drop to -40ºC.

Squadron 731

Although officially designated a “Water Purification Module” and located just 24km south of Harbin, Squadron 731 was in fact responsible for some of the most brutal war crimes ever committed.

Created in 1935 by the Japanese army, the 731st Squadron was a facility for human experimentation. It was only in 1984 that it became known that the Japanese subjected prisoners to live dissections, freezing, starvation, as well as inoculations with various diseases.

The Japanese also attacked the Russians in Harbin and it is estimated that around 30% of the 3,000-12,000 victims of Squadron 731 were Russian. The Russian community established a 5pm curfew to try to prevent their children from being arrested by the Japanese police.

Due to the USSR’s sale of the Chinese Eastern Railway to Japan in 1935 and the disappearance of people kidnapped by Squadron 731, most Russians in Harbin wanted to leave the city.

By the late 1930s, the number of local Russians had dwindled to about 30,000. Those who had chosen Soviet citizenship and those whose property had been confiscated by the Japanese opted to return to the USSR. Ironically, more than 48,000 of them were arrested as “Japanese spies” during the Great Purge of 1936–38.

When the Soviet Army took the city in August 1945, many of the city’s remaining residents suffered a similar fate: those deemed to have had any prior cooperation with the White Army, the Japanese Fascist Party, or the Russian Fascist Party were immediately rounded up and sent to gulags. Most of Harbin’s remaining Russians were repatriated to the Soviet Union, and in the 1964 Chinese census only 450 Russians were listed as living in the city.

Shen’yan

It is the largest city in northeast China, provincial capital and the most populous city in Liaoning Province, with 6.3 million inhabitants (2010 census). It is located on the banks of the Liao River.

Shenyang is a major industrial hub in China, serving as a transportation and trade center for northeast China, particularly with Japan, Russia, and Korea. A center of heavy industry in China since the 1930s, and the spearhead of the Chinese central government’s revitalization plan for the northeast area, the city has been diversifying its industry. In the 17th century, Shenyang was conquered by the Manchu people and briefly used as the capital of the Qing Dynasty.

Archaeological records indicate that this region has been inhabited for the last 7,200 years.

The city was established in the Warring States Period around 300 BC by the general Qin Kai of Yan State and was named Hou. In the Jin Dynasty it was known as Shen Prefecture, in the Yuan Dynasty as Shenyang Route, then in the Ming Dynasty as Shenyang Central Defense.

In 1625, the Manchu leader Nurhaci moved the capital to Shenyang. He renamed it Mukden in 1634. Shenyang remained the capital of the Manchus until it was moved to Beijing in 1644, when the new Qing dynasty was founded.

From 1657, Shenyang was renamed Fengtianfu. In 1914, it returned to its original name.

In 1905, the city witnessed a major Japanese victory during the Russo-Japanese War. The Mukden Incident (September 18, 1931), which prompted the Japanese to create the state of Manchukuo, took place very close to Shenyang. During the Manchukuo period, the city was again renamed Fengtian.

Today, it is one of China’s main industrial centres, as well as an important distribution centre in the north-east of the country. It has the largest airport in the area.

Shenyang is a major industrial center not only in the region but also in the whole of China. The city’s economy has been centered on heavy industry, particularly aerospace, machine tools, defense, automotive, electronics and recently software. Heavy industry began in the 1920s and developed well before World War II.

At its peak in the 1970s, Shenyang was one of three major industrial centers in China, alongside Shanghai and Tianjin. After the 1980s, heavy industry gradually declined and the city stagnated. However, the city’s economy has recovered significantly in recent years, thanks to the central government.

The city’s climate is monsoonal, influenced by the humid continental climate, which is characterized by hot, humid summers and dry winters, but very cold due to the Siberian anticyclone. The coldest month is January with -11 ºC and the warmest is July with 25 ºC, with an average of 9 ºC, leaving 183 days free of snow. However, extreme temperatures can be found, exceeding 35 ºC in summer and dropping to -25 °C in the winter months.

What to visit

Imperial Palace: Construction of the palace was started in 1625 by the Manchu leader Nurhaci and completed by his successor, Abahai. The first three Qing emperors lived there from 1625 to 1644. Mukden Palace was built to resemble the Forbidden City in Beijing. However, the palace also has influences from Manchu and Tibetan styles.

After the Qing Dynasty replaced the Ming Dynasty in Beijing in 1644, Mukden Palace lost its status as the Emperor’s official residence and became a regional palace. In 1780, the Qianlong Emperor expanded the palace.

In 1955, Mukden Palace was converted into the Shenyang Palace Museum. In 2004, it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as an extension of the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Northern Tomb (Bei Ling): Built for the founder of the Qing Dynasty, Emperor Huang Taiji, it also houses the remains of his former empress, Xiaoduanwen. It covers an area of ​​450 m². Access to the tomb is via the Spirit Path, which is surrounded by various animal statues.

Western Tomb: Built by the leader Abahai to house the remains of his grandfather, Nurhai, founder of the city.

Beijing

Beijing, literally «Northern Capital», is the capital of the People’s Republic of China. It is one of the most populated cities in the world with 21.54 million inhabitants (2018 census) and the second most populated city in the Republic, behind Shanghai. It is considered the cultural, political and social heart of China.

Beijing is the adaptation into Spanish of the official old Latin form Peking, which, according to the RAE, is the recommended way of calling this city in Spanish. This last form corresponded to the transcription method of the Chinese postal system and reflected the archaic pronunciation of the syllable jing. Currently, the People’s Republic of China exclusively uses the form Beijing, corresponding to the official hanyu pinyin transcription system. However, in the Spanish-speaking world, some media outlets use the official Chinese transcription, instead of the traditional Spanish form.

The phonetic record of «Pequín» is attested from the beginning of the 17th century in Razón de corte, by Juan Jerez; while «the first documentation of «Beijing» (in Spanish) is from 1984,» according to the doctor in Hispanic Philology Luis Silva-Villar.

In China, the city has had many names. Between 1928 and 1949, it was known in Chinese as Biping or “Northern Peace.” The name had already been used at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, in both cases to emphasize that Nanjing, the Southern Capital, was the only capital.

The city was renamed Beijing during the Japanese occupation, and was renamed Bipíng again after the end of World War II when the Japanese left China. The Chinese Communist Party changed the city’s name again in 1949, as a sign of its intention to establish the city as the capital of the new regime. After the proclamation of the People’s Republic, the name Bipíng continued to be used in Taiwan, where the refugee government of the Republic of China denied legitimacy to the communist authorities on the mainland. Since the 1980s, the Taiwanese media have also used the name Beijing. Note that the current, traditional Chinese name Beijing is the one that corresponds to the traditional Spanish form «Pekín», while the name Bipíng from the Nationalist era was usually transcribed in the West in variants of the Wade-Giles transcription such as Peiping, Peip’ing, Pei-ping or Pei-p’ing.

Yanjing is another name that has been and is popularly given to Beijing, referring to the ancient state of Yan that existed in the area during the Zhou Dynasty. This name figures in the name of the local beer Yanjing and in that of Yenching University, a higher-level institution merged with Peking University. Beijing is the Khanbaliq, Cambaluc or Janbalic described in the travels of Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta.

There are traces of human settlements in the area around Beijing dating back to at least 1000 BC. The city of Ji, near present-day Beijing, was the capital of the Yan State, one of the states of the Warring States period.

During the great Tang and Song dynasties, only small villages existed in the area. The Song dynasty lost much of its northern territory, including Beijing, to the conquests of the new Liao dynasty in the 10th century. The Liao founded a second capital in the city, which they called Nanjing («southern capital»). The Jin dynasty would later conquer Liao and northern China, renaming the city Zhongdu, or «central capital».

The Mongol invaders founded the Yuan Dynasty when they conquered China, razing Zhongdu in 1215 and rebuilding it as the Great Capital, north of the Jin capital, at the beginning of the present-day city of Beijing. Marco Polo’s accounts refer to the city as Cambaluc. Kublai Khan, the first Yuan emperor, established his capital in present-day Beijing because it was closer to his power base in Mongolia, which enhanced the city’s importance despite its location on the northern edge of China.

The Ming Dynasty, which overthrew the Mongols, initially established its capital at Nanjing; but in 1403 the third Ming Emperor, Y?nglè, who had acceded to the throne by killing his nephew at the end of a long power struggle, moved the capital back to Beijing. The Forbidden City was built between 1406 and 1420, followed by the Temple of Heaven (1420), and other projects. Tian’anmen Gate was burned twice during the Ming Dynasty and finally rebuilt in 1651. Beijing became the world’s most populous city by the 15th century, when it had 1,000,000 population.

The area where Beijing is located was already inhabited during the Neolithic, as was demonstrated after finding a homo erectus called “Peking Man”, this being one of the oldest links of human evolution found to date. The city of Beijing was born with the name of Ji or Ki, around the 8th century BC. Centuries later it suffered the wars produced during the era of the Warring States in the 5th and 3rd centuries BC. The first ruler who unified China, basically regulating the writing of Chinese characters, was Qinshi Huangdi, with whom he started the Qin dynasty. After him, in 206 BC, the rebels, led by Liu Bang, took power and began the Han dynasty: which marked the Chinese soul. After the Han for a short period came the Sui, after a turbulent time of occupation by the barbarians of the steppes. Then came the Tang (618 AD-907 AD) who marked the era of greatest cultural and artistic growth.

The Republic of China established its capital in Nanjing and Beijing was renamed Beiping. During the Second Sino-Japanese War, it was occupied by Japan on July 29, 1937. During the occupation, Beijing served as the capital of the North China Executive Committee, a puppet state that ruled northern occupied China. The occupation lasted until Japan’s surrender on August 15, 1945.

On January 31, 1949, during the Chinese Civil War, communist forces entered Beijing without violence. On October 1 of that year, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Mao Zedong, proclaimed the new People’s Republic of China in Tian’anmen Square.

As the nation’s capital, Beijing has also been the site of protests and political events, such as the May 4 protests in 1919, which led to the May Fourth Movement, the proclamation of the People’s Republic on October 1, 1949, the Tian’anmen Incident in 1976, which saw widespread protests in memory of the late Premier Zhou Enlai, and most recently the Tian’anmen Square protests in 1989, which were violently quelled by military intervention on June 4, one of the most controversial actions in the history of the People’s Republic of China. The square has also been the site of protests by Falun Gong practitioners.

In recent years, Beijing has suffered the consequences of rapid urbanization, including traffic congestion, air pollution, destruction of historical heritage and the massive influx of migrants from other parts of the country.

Beijingers speak the Beijing dialect of Mandarin, on which Pātānghuā, the standard form of Chinese, is based.

Culture

Peking Opera is well known in the capital. It is said to be one of the greatest expressions of Chinese culture. Performances consist of a combination of singing, dialogue, action scenes coded with gestures, walking, fighting and acrobatics. Many of the operas are written in an archaic dialect quite different from modern Chinese, so the dialogue is difficult to understand, and the problem is compounded if one is not familiar with Chinese; this is why modern theatres have panels displaying subtitles in both Chinese and English.

The sìhéyuán is the type of housing that represents the traditional architectural style of Beijing. It consists of square houses with a corridor around a central courtyard, which usually has trees, flowers and fish ponds.

The hutongs or alleys connect the interior of the old city of Beijing. They are generally straight and run from east to west. Thus, the doors of the houses can open to the north and south to follow the rules of Feng Shui. Some are very narrow and only allow the passage of a few pedestrians at a time. The dominant means of transport in the hutongs is the bicycle.

Unfortunately, both hutong and sìhéyuán are disappearing from Beijing due to the need for space. However, some hutong were preserved and restored by the government as the country wanted to ensure that at least some of these old neighbourhoods, reminiscent of old China, would remain by the time the 2008 Summer Olympics were held.

Traditional Peking cuisine is Mandarin-style cuisine. «Peking duck» or «roasted duck» is perhaps its most internationally known dish. This recipe dates back to the 13th century and uses specially fattened ducks. Their meat undergoes a complicated cooking process. This roast duck is served with a cereal sauce, slices of leek and special pancakes.

Tea houses are very popular in Beijing. Chinese tea comes in many varieties, some of which are very expensive. Traditional Chinese medicine attributes healing powers to tea.

If there is one place you must see in Beijing, it is the Forbidden City. The majestic architectural complex was the palace where the 24 Chinese emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties ruled. The Imperial Palace and its various buildings were reserved for the court and its subjects from the 15th century until the mid-20th century, hence the name Forbidden City.

To visit and enjoy it, you need at least two hours, as you can tour both its enormous courtyards and the 9,999 public and private rooms of the emperor and his concubines. It is a World Heritage Site.

Located next to the Forbidden City, visiting Tiananmen Square is another must-do activity in Beijing. We are talking about the most important square in China and the largest in the world, with dimensions of 880 m by 500 m. It was built in 1949, after the proclamation of the People’s Republic of China and has been the scene of important recent events in the country’s history.

Tiananmen Square is home to several of the most important places to see in Beijing. For example, the Gate of Heavenly Peace, which gives access to the Forbidden City and from where Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the Republic. In addition, there are also the Qianmen Tower, the National Museum of China, the Great Hall of the People, the Monument to the People’s Heroes and the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, where the embalmed body of the founder of the People’s Republic of China is located.

Another of the must-see places in Beijing is the Great Wall of China. Although it does not pass through Beijing, as the closest section is about 80 kilometers away, it is one of the most popular excursions from the capital.

The Great Wall is the symbol of China and is part of the select group of the Seven Wonders of the World. Although it is 8,851.8 kilometres long, crossing mountains, deserts and plains, only a few restored sections can be visited. Each of them is impressive, but they vary in the number of visitors and their state of preservation. If the visitor has only a few days to visit Beijing, perhaps the most convenient is Badaling, the closest to the city, but also the most crowded with visitors.

The Transsiberian

We have finally reached the end of the journey. We have been travelling along the Trans-Siberian Railway for almost two months since the now distant beginnings in Moscow in early July. We have travelled thousands of kilometres aboard the longest and most legendary train in the world.

Touching on the major urban centres of Russia on our journey between Europe and Asia, we passed through Ekaterinburg to the great city of Siberia: Novosibirsk. Then it was the turn of another great pearl, Krasnoyarks to end this tour in Irkutsk at the gates of the great Lake Baikal.

Through Baikal we learned to love Siberia. We were surprised and amazed by those contrasting landscapes between summer and winter and we flew through all its corners thanks to the kindness of Alex Drone.

Then we continued towards the Pacific and crossed the Republic of Buryatia, arriving at Ulan Ude and then landing in Chita, after having crossed the enormous and colossal steppes and forests of Siberia that left us with an unforgettable breath under the crackling of that century-old train loaded with customs and cultural diversity.

We reached the final point of the Trans-Siberian in Vladivostok, where Alex Drone once again delighted us and took our capacity for amazement to the maximum level.

Very close to the end we are transported to the Trans-Mongolian and now to the Trans-Manchurian, two branches of the Rossiya that plunge into the very depths of two ancient worlds.

And here in Beijing, we get off the train, once called «Rossiya», pack our bags and say goodbye to this compact universe of cultures and history of a Russian nation that developed largely in the shadow of a huge railway that laid the foundations for the times we live in today.

We have learned from «Rossiya». And although it was a virtual tour through our pages, those of us who developed it also learned to know it and, what is more interesting, it has awakened in us a huge desire to know it and explore it.

If you haven’t thought about «Rossiya» until now, we invite you to read and thoroughly enjoy this Dossier, and then comment to see what feelings it has awakened in you. Maybe we agree.

To finish… one last tour…

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