What to buy in Harbin

Due to the harsh weather here that makes most goods hard to grow, Harbin has fewer local products to brag about. Sausage is popular with ordinary households, an influence perhaps of the Russian history here.

Local specialties and souvenirs can be divided into roughly two categories: Northeastern Chinese specialties and Russian products. Black Currant Wine and Russian Nested Doll are two other popular products to buy.

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Black Currant Wine
The black currant is a small shrub native to northern Europe and Asia. The fruit is an edible berry 1 cm in diameter and almost black in color. When ripe, these berries have a sweet, sharp taste that allows them to be made into jam, juice and wines, in addition to flavorings for pastries and ice cream.

Harbin Red Sausage
In Northeast China, a popular regional specialty is smoked savory red sausage, similar to Polish sausages. It was introduced to Harbin by a German sausage maker in 1931. The sweeter dried version similar to southern Chinese sausages are also produced.

Russian Nested Doll
Russian nesting doll is a set of dolls of decreasing sizes placed one inside the other.It consists of a wooden figure which separates, top from bottom, to reveal a smaller figure of the same sort inside, which has, in turn, another figure inside of it, and so on.