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Feature: China-Russia border cities thrive on trade, tourism(Xinhua) 09:43, May 08, 2025
HARBIN/BEIJING, May 7 (Xinhua) -- On the frontier of high-level connectivity between the two sides, Chinese cities, like buttons sewn onto the 4,300-km-long shared border with Russia, fasten the two countries together.
Though far from the bustle of metropolises and blanketed in snow for nearly half of the year, the border cities in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province exude an international flair, blending cultural characteristics from both sides. Russian shoppers lug bulging bags through streets lined with bilingual signs, where thickly accented Mandarin hums with bursts of Russian.
Over the years, Heilongjiang's border cities have evolved from small trading posts in the 1980s to crucial nodes on the Belt and Road, witnessing greater connectivity between China and Russia as enhanced infrastructure fuels trade and people-to-people exchanges.
PORT, BRIDGE AND GREATER CONNECTIVITY
Every day, trucks and tourist buses cross back and forth through the busy highway port between Suifenhe, China's northeastern gateway, and Pogranichny in Russia's Primorsky Krai.
Russian seafood, soybeans and honey entering through Suifenhe make their way to dinner tables in Heilongjiang's capital Harbin, Shanghai and as far south as Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong Province. Tourists follow a similar route.
At Qingyun Market, a commercial complex mainly targeting foreign consumers, Russian tourist Tatyana, who did not reveil her full name, told Xinhua that her family visits Suifenhe every year. "It has become a regular stop for us," she said. "Sometimes we start here, then head to Dalian or down to Shanghai for a holiday."
According to local customs authorities, cargo volume at the Suifenhe highway port reached a historic high of 1.23 million tons, surpassed 1 million tons for the first time in 2024. In the first quarter of 2025, the daily average number of vehicles passing through the port has remained around 300, an increase of nearly 50 vehicles per day compared to the daily average in 2024.
Meanwhile, Primorsky Krai is also enhancing its border infrastructure. Konstantin Sidorenko, the region's minister for international and foreign economic relations, told Xinhua that Pogranichny will expand its land port to 22 lanes, with the capacity to process up to 1,300 vehicles each day by the end of this year.
Pogranichny is also set to introduce an electronic queuing system, he added, as broader transport and logistics projects will roll out across Primorsky Krai -- part of a push to meet President Vladimir Putin's goal of cutting border inspection time to under 10 minutes.
"Once the projects are completed, freight and passenger throughput at the port is expected to increase significantly," Sidorenko said.
Heihe, another small border city in Heilongjiang Province and the closest Chinese city to Russia, saw the opening of the first cross-border highway bridge between the two countries -- the Heihe-Blagoveshchensk cross-border highway bridge.
Before its construction, port operations limited border-crossing to 240 days annually due to the river's frozen winters. Opened to traffic in 2022, the bridge was built with special steel that can resist corrosion and withstand temperatures as low as minus 60 degrees Celsius, guaranteeing full-year operations unfazed by rising waters or withering snowstorms.
The enhanced connectivity, combined with Heihe's resumption of mutual visa-free group tours with Russia in September 2023, has driven a surge in cross-border travel. According to border authorities, the city saw 850,180 people cross the border in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 127 percent.
Deputy Minister of Transport and Road Facilities of Russia's Amur Region Svetlana Popova said the highway bridge has become "a symbol of China-Russia friendship," connecting the two sides and bringing "the hearts of the people from both sides closer together."
FROM OFFLINE TRADE TO E-COMMERCE
Thanks to convenient border-crossing transportation, the total trade value between Heilongjiang Province and Russia reached 234.12 billion yuan (32.2 billion U.S. dollars) in 2024, marking an 11.2 percent increase year-on-year, according to Harbin Customs.
"The cross-border highway bridge has greatly boosted transport efficiency and cut costs for our business," said Sun Li, general manager of Heihe Fangshengyuan Trading Co. Ltd., which specializes in fruit and vegetable exports.
Every day, Sun oversees shipments of blueberries from Liaoning, tomatoes from Shandong and chocolate navel oranges from Sichuan as they arrive at a warehouse in Heihe's free trade zone, destined for store shelves across Russia.
"Our products are mainly destined for Blagoveshchensk in the Amur Oblast and Yakutsk in the Sakha Republic," Sun told Xinhua. "We load about 10 truckloads a day, roughly 200 tons of goods."
The smooth cross-border travel also allows Russians to purchase these fruits in Heihe's morning market, along with a variety of local breakfast choices not commonly found back home.
