Pingfang District 平房区

Setting and landscape

Pingfang sits on the rolling hills of an offshoot of the Zhangguangcai Range (张广才岭) in the Changbai mountain system. Xinhua describes the ground as high and little troubled by floods, and the district as a dozen or so kilometres from central Harbin. According to Xinhua the district has 342 registered old and notable trees, among them a "fire elm" (火榆) more than 300 years old.

History

The district history records that in the late Qing the village here was called Yihe (义和屯) and was renamed Pingfang (平房屯) as a wish for peace, so the name has nothing to do with single-storey houses. Unit 731 first operated at Beiyinhe (背荫河) in Wuchang County, about 70 kilometres south of Harbin, and moved to Pingfang after a prisoner break-out there in 1934. The base grew to more than 100 square kilometres; Xinhua reports that at least 3,000 people were used for human experiments. In August 1945, with defeat certain, the unit burned its records and blew up its facilities and equipment.

From 1949 builders came from across China. Four of the 156 key projects of the First Five-Year Plan were placed in Pingfang, including the 101 plant, now Northeast Light Alloy (东北轻合金), and the 122 plant, now Harbin Aircraft Industry Group; Pingfang became a district in November 1953. China's first helicopter, the Z-5, was built here. The builders called the place a "new frontier", which gave Xinjiang Avenue (新疆大街) its name, while Youxie Avenue (友协大街) recalls the Soviet experts who helped set up the plants.

What to see

The Unit 731 Museum (侵华日军第七三一部队罪证陈列馆) stands at the south-east corner of the core of the Unit 731 site, which the State Council listed as a national key cultural relics protection site in May 2006 and which entered China's tentative list for World Heritage in 2012. The new hall, a black box-shaped building, opened on 15 August 2015; its six exhibition themes run from bacterial warfare and human experimentation to the destruction of evidence and the trials. Excavation in 2014 of the "Square Building" (四方楼), the laboratory and special prison of about 151 by 101 metres, found blast pits and ash pits left when evidence was destroyed.

Xinhua describes the Harbin Ice and Snow Culture Museum (哈尔滨冰雪文化博物馆) in Pingfang as the country's first professional museum devoted to ice-and-snow culture, and the district's curling hall hosted events of the Harbin Asian Winter Games.

Highlights

• Unit 731 Museum 侵华日军第七三一部队罪证陈列馆: New hall opened on 15 August 2015 at the Unit 731 site, a national key protected site since 2006.
• Square Building 四方楼: Laboratory and special prison of Unit 731, about 151 by 101 metres, excavated in 2014.
• Harbin Ice and Snow Culture Museum 哈尔滨冰雪文化博物馆: Described by Xinhua as China's first professional museum themed on ice-and-snow culture.
• Xinjiang Avenue 新疆大街: Named by 1950s factory builders who called Pingfang a "new frontier"; the Unit 731 Museum is on it.