A group of photographers in Santa costumes dance at a street parade on Friday in Luoyang, Henan province. They shared greetings with passers-by and handed out candy to children. |
MOHE, Heilongjiang - Russian timber and crude oil have been Mohe county's main imports during the past decade but the community brought in its strangest commodity this winter when it adopted the Christmas Village idea from Finland.
Mohe, which is in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, is only the width of the Heilongjiang River away from Russia and, as the nation's most northerly point, is known as China's North Pole.
It's a place that knows a thing or two about winter and holds the distinction of having experienced China's lowest recorded temperature back in 1956 when the mercury plummeted to -52.3 C. But it's not a community that is prepared to let its remote location and extreme weather hold it back.
Since the 1990s, people have been flocking to Mohe during the summer months to witness the aurora borealis, or northern lights.
Some 430,000 tourists made the trip in 2009 and so far in 2010, there have been 620,000.
Now, the town is looking for a way to keep the tourists coming during the winter and its Christmas Village seemed like the perfect fit.
"Business across the seasons is not steady," said Ji Bin, secretary of the Mohe committee of the Communist Party of China.
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