Drinking Vodka in a Russian City Denuded of Russians
Drinking Vodka in a Russian City Denuded of Russians
Vodka in Harbin
Harbin is like a great Russian museum piece. Stuck in the far northeast of China, in remote Heiliongjang province, Harbin has the Russian weather, the Russian temperament, the Russian architecture. All it’s missing is the Russians.
They used to live here en masse. It was the Russians who built the railway to what was then just a godforsaken frozen fishing village on the Songhua River. In 1896, the Qing dynasty conceded a railway head to the Russian Empire, and laborers came and built a Russian city in this Manchurian valley.
A slew of Orthodox and Catholic churches went up, two synagogues, a conservatory of music, and plenty of drinking and eating holes. The place grew with domed roofs and long, colonnaded buildings.
The Tsar lost the rail rights to Harbin when Russia was pulverized by the Japanese in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. But the Russians kept coming: following Russian Revolutions I (1905) and II (1917), the city was flooded with refugees. There were conspirators, spies, and soldiers, too; communists, anarchists, and royalists; Jews, Christians, and Muslims; business people and opium dealers. The riff-raff of Eastern Europe and northern China came here not just to flee persecution, but to make deals, hatch schemes, and watch the 20th century unfold.
Always done over a table. Neither the Russian nor Chinese dinner table should ever be trifled with. Each country lives to eat and drink with family and friends. Whether it’s planning the import of a trainload of opium, scheming a Communist coup d’état, or just securing funding for a Kosher butcher, it’s massed around a table piled high with blintzes, borscht, cabbage rolls, and, of course, vodka, that great deals are made.
Today the Russians are almost all gone. There are some students, some visitors—especially during the winter Ice and Snow Festival—but the synagogues and basilicas are now museums. But there is still Russian food and vodka, and for those tired of the same noodle and baiju, rice, and beer combinations, God bless them for it.
There is still an old Russian charm at Lucia’s Russian Restaurant, on the top of Zhongyang Dajie pedestrian street. There are flowered tablecloths, framed photographs, carefully laid out silverware. The cabbage rolls are very good, the lamb stew tender, sharp, and delicious. And the vodka—a Russian variety called Ahnt is my choice—is a necessity with this meal.
In this Brave New China, it’s common to see difference swept away under a rolling tide of Chinese-style modernization, replacing the old and unique with a nation of mini-Beijings. So far, Harbin has adapted well; even the new buildings are done in a unique Russian/Harbin style.
So next time you’re here, head to a Russian restaurant, and raise a glass of vodka to what was, what is, and what will hopefully continue to be, a unique piece of the Asian world.