Wuhan: sights, history, facts in numbers. What hotels in Wuhan have nice views? Changing privacy settings

Today is the second day in Wuhan, and I still can’t get rid of sad thoughts... Everywhere you go, wherever you look, there is construction everywhere. The Chinese are rebuilding everything at an incredible pace. Huge historical neighborhoods are being demolished. And these are no longer dusty slums of khatuns, this is already a completely solid historical building. They demolish everything. In some places they are planning to make a new road or interchange, in others they are planning to build new multi-storey residential complexes. Red marks remain everywhere on old buildings - this is a death sentence. This means that heavy construction equipment will arrive soon, and there won’t be another block.

The Chinese generally treat historical buildings very carelessly. Here it is quite normal to demolish the center of a thousand-year-old city and then rebuild it again. The Chinese don't see the difference between old and new. More precisely, they see: the new one is better, cleaner, they can install air conditioning and have bigger windows. In general, all this is sad. Cities become the same, boring, plastic, unreal. Endless towers, fakes, copies are growing everywhere. Eh, such a country has been screwed up!

On the other hand, this is an incentive to go to China faster, to look, photograph and remember faster. Our children will no longer see old China.

I met a local resident in China. Well, locals, Pavel has been studying Chinese medicine for 5 years. Lives in Wuhan. I asked him what was good about the city. Among the new advantages:

1. Wuhan is located in the center of China. Close to everything!
2. Pavel says that Wuhan has the most beautiful girls.
3. There is also Ugan here - the first metalworking plant. I don’t know how big a plus this is, but still!
4. Electric cars operate as taxis here. And also fully electric buses. Although this is not a unique case for modern China.

01. In the morning I look out of the window and see the blue sky! At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, but then I remembered that today was Sunday, which means they were burning a little less coal, and the smog cleared! Beauty! By the way, if you are going to China, plan your climbs to the observation decks on weekends or holidays. Then it will be possible to at least see something.

02. The Chinese are able to build extremely terrible multi-story buildings. The problem is not only in the architecture, but in their general condition. They are almost always terribly dirty. Some kind of shit is flowing down the facades from everywhere. Of course, no one washes anything. It is easier to demolish and rebuild than to restore an old building.

03. In the foreground is the historical buildings of Wuhan. Tiled roofs, narrow winding streets. These areas could be renovated, put in order, and it would be no worse than in Europe.

04. But all the buildings already have red marks. This means that all this will soon be demolished.

05. Information was posted on the wall about how to receive compensation for demolished housing. It is very important for the Chinese to receive such compensation. If they consider its size unfair, then sometimes they even decide to protest. For example, they cover their entire house or balcony with white sheets with large hieroglyphs, thus putting forward their demands to the authorities. Or they even refuse to move out of the house to be demolished.

06. Another area. The buildings are brick and in good condition. In Europe, this would be a pleasant area for tourists to stroll through. After the Second Opium War, Wuhan was divided into foreign zones of influence. Several concessions were created here: French, British, German, Japanese and even Russian. So the Europeans actively built up the city, including residential buildings.

07. In China, all this will be demolished and multi-story anthills will be built.

08. See the gray fence in the foreground? This is the first signal of impending demolition. This type of fence is used to cover historical buildings near tourist routes so that guests are not embarrassed by the sight of working equipment. Soon it will all be demolished and new buildings will be built.

09. Mix of old colonial buildings and new buildings in the center.

10. A giant new waterfront park.

11. Overpasses and skyscrapers are growing in place of old neighborhoods. By the way, driving around Wuhan is pure hell. Not a single navigator can help you figure out the intricacies of local overpasses. You constantly take the right turn.

12. Chinese military!

13. And this is the tallest building in the city and the second tallest in all of China! Or rather, when it is completed in 2018, it will even be the tallest in China until the construction of Sky City in Changsha is completed. This is the Wuhan Greenland Center, a future 125-story skyscraper with an expected height of 636 meters. This is 4 meters higher than the Shanghai Tower. The Greenland Center will house offices, apartments, and a hotel.

When completed it will look like this:

14. Here it is, a real Chinese remake. The usual mediocre fake. It seems like everything is like in the picture, but something is wrong))) And such vile parodies of historical buildings are being made all over the country. Horror.

15. The bridge that was built by the Soviet Union in 1957. This is the first bridge across the Yangtze River, it is two-tiered: trains travel along the lower one, cars travel along the upper one. Surprisingly, there are also pedestrian sidewalks. Before the bridge was opened, crossing the Yangtze was a real problem for the city. There were pontoons here, and ferries went from one to the other. A railway car could take a whole day to be transported, and pedestrians also had a hard time.

16. By the way, a trolleybus runs across the bridge!

To combat traffic jams, Wuhan introduced restrictions on the passage of cars on bridges. On even days, cars with license plates ending in even numbers can drive on bridges, and vice versa. If you drive across the bridge on the wrong day, you get a fine.

17. And this is the metro. In China, there is a metro in every second village, and even more so in Wuhan, the largest city in central China.

18. In China, everything becomes outdated and becomes unusable very quickly. What was built 20 years ago is now time to demolish. Pay attention to the overpass; you have to climb three flights of stairs to reach it. There is no normal barrier-free environment here, like almost everywhere else in China.

19.

20. Gloomy old houses

21. Garbage is thrown directly under the windows.

22. There is bustle downstairs, all the first floors are eateries and shops. There is noise, din, smells everywhere. In general, it's fun). The real life that urbanists dream about in Moscow. All that remains now is to bring this life into a civilized form. We can start by weaning the Chinese from shitting on the street. They love this business.

China has simplified rules for small and medium-sized businesses. Everyone pays the same tax no matter how much they sell. That's why small businesses are thriving here. Cafes, hardware stores, stationery stores, dry cleaners, and so on open on the first floors of houses.

23. A new city is coming.

24. And European culture is rapidly advancing on China. European cafes and shops are opening everywhere. Even normal coffee shops have appeared here, where they make good coffee! Well, there is a Starbucks in every major city in the country. In general, China has a very flexible society that does not live within any rigid framework. The Chinese easily adapt to everything new and do not give up their traditions. The country has existed for 5 thousand years, but China remains China.

25. Well, you can never tell from this photo that this is China. Well, maybe the flashlight will tell you.

26. There are some bars everywhere, there is even craft beer!

27. Here's a selection of local stores for hipsters.

In China, you can now pay for everything using QR codes. They have their own WeChat messenger, but the Chinese use it not only for communication, but also as a payment system. Imagine if you could pay for anything via Telegram! Things like Apple Pay don’t take root in China because everyone here pays with their smartphones. They just scan these QR codes and that’s it. Moreover, you can pay anywhere: in markets, in subway passages, and so on.

Bank cards are used less and less in everyday life in China, because they are considered inconvenient and outdated.

28. Fashionable matches!

29. Drink in the form of blood!

30. Fashion

31. Soon the Chinese will forget that they are Chinese!

32.

33. You can even see modern street art on the streets.

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35. Entrance to the hostel

36.

37. We accidentally found an abandoned hotel. It is unknown who abandoned it and why. But even the cars in the yard are old.

38. Mysterious story. There is furniture inside, the whole interior. But the doors are closed. And the hotel is located in the city center! What could have happened here?

39. A legendary place for all swimmers. More precisely, to swim across the muddy waters of the great Yangtze River. It says here that this is a swimming base in winter.

40. "Winter Swimming"

41. The guys are preparing to repeat the feat of Mao Zedong.

42. By the way, the current is quite strong! And the water is quite cold, as swimmers say.

43. This is the "Swimming" monument. Engraved on it is a poem that Mao Zedong dedicated to the Wuhan people who bravely overcame the consequences of the 1954 Yangtze flood. The water level on the river within the city then rose to almost 28 meters. Then dams were built upstream, and such floods no longer happened.

44. On the ferry.

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46. ​​A dog bathing in a river arouses great interest among the public.

47.

48. In general, the Chinese love dogs.

49. Recently there was a terrible story in Wuhan. One man saved up for a long time for a dog of some rare and expensive breed, in the end he bought it, but this dog was stolen from him. The man looked for her everywhere, promised a big reward... The dog was eventually found. Or rather, not the dog, but the restaurant to which the dog was sold. There was no time to save the dog.

50. But now cats are in fashion! Cats are everywhere. Not a single fashionable cafe today can do without cats in the interior.

51. The fashion for cats was brought to China by the Japanese.

52. Cleaning carp, which are caught in these very muddy waters.

53. Street food. The chef is wearing a mask not for sanitary reasons, but because it is impossible to breathe due to what and how he cooks.

54.

55. Looks appetizing if you don’t know what kind of oil they cook it with;)

56. Squids.

57. Street buffet!

58. Wuhan Station. Every Chinese village has a train station larger than any train station you could find in Russia. depart every minute, the buildings themselves are gigantic in size.

59. From the station I am going to Hefei. By high-speed train the journey takes two hours. A business class ticket cost 1,250 rubles.

60. Previously, there were two train stations in Wuhan: from one train they went to the south, from the other – to the north. As new bridges were built across the Yangtze, transport problems were solved.

61. The station in Hefei has gigantic spaces, huge waiting rooms. The size of local train stations is amazing.

62. Queue for a taxi.

63. Or rather, not even one queue, but four, and there may be more. I drove 400 km between Wuhan and Hefei for two hours, stood in line for a taxi for an hour and drove for about another hour to the hotel. The line moves slowly, because, firstly, there are few taxi cars, and secondly, some Chinese allow themselves to be stupid.

64. A man with a cart and a bunch of junk is trying to put it all into the car. Moreover, this is not a porter’s cart, but his own.

65. The trunk does not close...) And so every second Chinese. They are terribly stupid, which is why all movement is delayed.

66. Why I love China is that there are very inexpensive hotels here. In Europe or Russia, a 5-star hotel would cost a lot of money, but in China, in almost any city, for 4-5 thousand rubles you can rent a good 5-star hotel with a huge room, a large bathroom and good furniture.

Continue tomorrow.

Wuhan (China) - a city located at the confluence of the Han and Han Shui, has an ancient history dating back more than 3 millennia, it has many attractions and picturesque parks, and the first bridge built in China is located. Since 2014, the city has annually hosted an International Tennis Tournament.

Geographical location and description

Wuhan city (in English) Wuhan) lies 1120 km south of Beijing, and 900 km west of Shanghai. It is the administrative center of Hubei Province, with a population of more than 10 million in 2015.

Geographically, it consists of the “Three Cities of Wuhan”, which are called: Wuchang, Hankou and Hanyang. All of them are located on both banks of the rivers, connected to each other by bridges, many of which are laid over dams.

The center of Wuhan is the area of ​​​​Zhongshandadao Street and Jefangdadao Avenue, where there are many hotels, shops, markets and restaurants.

History of the city's creation

The ancient history of the first human settlements in these places dates back 3,500 years ago, where, following the flow of the Yangtze River, traders came and built port buildings here. The entire central part is flat; in the south the area becomes hilly. There are many lakes and swamps in the city, through which dams have been built over the past centuries for travel.

The official date of the founding of the city of Wuhan (China) is considered to be the 3rd century, when local residents erected stone walls for protection. In 208-209, several famous battles took place here, incl. Battle of Red Rocks. For a long time, Wuhan was considered the scientific and cultural center of China, and since the 18th century. it also became a trading city through which Chinese tea was exported to the northern regions of the country, as well as Russia and Mongolia.

Russian merchants played a major role in the tea trade, establishing factories in Yangloudun, which were then moved to one of the regions - Hankou. Later, British traders also began to engage in this production. By the end of the 19th century. A railroad was built through the city, along which various cargoes were brought and loaded onto river barges.

Political life

The beginning of the 20th century in Wuhan (China) was marked by political turmoil. In 1911, the Wuchang uprising took place here, which resulted in the fall of the Chinese Empire. From that time on, a republic was established in China.

In the 1920s, Wuhan became the capital of the leftist Kuomintang movement, which was in opposition to the government of Chiang Kai-shek.

In 1938, a battle called the “Wuhan” battle took place in the city and the surrounding area between opposing forces in the 2nd Sino-Japanese War, as a result of which the city was captured by the Japanese. From here, Japanese troops directed the transportation of goods and military operations of the Japanese army units participating in the battles.

During World War II, the city was bombed by the 14th Army of the American Air Force, as a result of which many buildings and structures were destroyed.

In 1967, during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, mass clashes took place in Wuhan between detachments of progressive student youth (the Red Guard organization), as a result of which local residents began to create self-defense units to protect themselves from attacks by warring factions.

By 1969, the excessive activity of organizations and the activities of the Red Guards and Jiaofans was defeated after the introduction of government troops by General Chen Zaidao, who was the head of the Wuhan Military District. In Chinese history, this was the first experience of using state troops to restore order.

Natural disasters

Wuhan (China) is a place where floods often occur. The most global event occurred in the summer of 1954, during which the water level in the river reached 29.93 m. A monument built in 1969 is dedicated to this event, on which Mao Zedong’s poems “Swimming” and a dedication to the heroism of the city’s residents are carved.

To prevent further disasters, dams were built upstream to hold back the river flow and regulate the water level.

Wuhan, China: attractions

The main symbol of the city is the Yellow Stork Tower, which is one of the 3rd tallest buildings in southern China, its height is 51.4 m and consists of 5 floors. It was erected as a guard for the emperor's army. The tower belongs to the ancient historical heritage of the country; it was repeatedly destroyed by wars and fires and was rebuilt many times. In 1981, a modern tower was erected on the site of the old one. Each floor is dedicated to different sections of art, and there is also a room for visiting writers and poets. From the heights of the Yellow River there is a beautiful panorama of the city and the Yangtze River.

Other popular attractions in Wuhan (China):

• Guiyuan Buddhist Temple (founded in 1658) - located in the west of the Hanyang region, the time of its construction dates back to the period of change and the Qing. The name is taken from a Buddhist hymn and means “return to the beginning”, i.e. to peace and purity. Some buildings were erected at the end of the 19th century, the newer part - in the first half of the 20th century. The arrangement of the courtyards in the plan resembles a monk's robe, in total the complex includes more than 20 buildings and structures, among them an important place is occupied by a 105-ton jade statue of Buddha, donated by the state of Burma in 1935. There are also 500 gilded stone carvings of “luohan” (dedicated students) who were carved by Chinese craftsmen between 1822 and 1831.

• Qingchuange Tower, or “the first tower of the kingdom of Chu,” stands on the northern bank of the Yangtze River, on the opposite side of the Yellow River, built during the reign of Emperor Jiajing (Ming Dynasty), as a tribute to the memory of Dayu, who was able to pacify the river flood by changing beds. The tower and the surrounding mountains create a beautiful, unforgettable landscape that attracts visitors and residents of the city.
• Tourists interested in the history and archeology of China will be interested in visiting the Hubei Provincial Museum, which contains a collection of objects from the excavations of the Zhenghoui tomb (5th century BC). Musical instruments (bells, drums and flutes) that are still in working order are also collected here, and small concerts are held. In total, 200 thousand exhibits are exhibited.

Parks and lakes

There are 2 large rivers flowing through the city, there are many reservoirs, there are hills and mountains, on the territory of which there are national parks and places for recreation for citizens.

Lake Donghu (East), nicknamed the “Lake of 99 Curves” for its undulating coastline, is the largest Chinese body of water in the city, with an area of ​​34 sq. km. Through the main gate, visitors can enter a picturesque park with redwood trees, sculptures, interesting pavilions and restaurants.

Moshan Hill (Mt. Mushroom) is a huge park adjacent to Donghu Lake, which is home to many temples, monuments and shops. Most of the buildings were erected in the 1990s; the park is considered a popular holiday destination among the local population and tourists. The Moshan Mountains have 6 peaks, the highest - Dongfeng - is similar in outline to a stone mushroom, hence the name. On the territory of the park there is a botanical garden, Cherry Blossom Park, and a Taoist temple. Liyuan Park houses an aquarium and hosts festivals and concerts.

Transport

The city of Wuhan (China), with a population of many millions, is heavily congested with vehicles, and there are often traffic jams on the roads. All 3 parts of the city are connected by bridges, one of which is the first modern structure in China (built in 1957) and is called the “First Bridge”.

The first bridge was built between Turtle Mountain and Snake Tower in Wuchang, at both ends there are 7-story towers that anyone can climb to admire the city. The bridge consists of 143 panels on both sides, depicting scenes from Chinese history, such as carp swimming among the lotus, peacocks with beautiful feathers, and a magpie singing in a flowering tree.

The cheapest public transport is the metro and buses; ferries run across the river, carrying passengers from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. The metro was opened in 2004, after which Wuhan became the 6th city in China with an operating metro system.

Railway transport arrives at 3 stations: Wuchang, Hankou and New, built in 2009. According to the development plan, it should connect to one of the metro lines. The new station was built specifically for high-speed trains running in the Beijing-Guangzhou direction and consists of 11 platforms.

Education and sports

There are more than 20 universities and colleges in Wuhan, including the oldest Wuhan University, State Normal University, Birmingham Institute of Fashion and Creative Arts, University of Economics and Law, etc.

Since 2014, the city has become the venue for the open tennis championship, for which an ultra-modern stadium complex was built, designed for 15 thousand fans. A special feature of the stadium building is a retractable roof, 25 VIP apartments, beautiful wide halls for players and the press, and premises for organizers.

The women's professional tennis tournament in Wuhan (China) has been a huge success with spectators; in 2015, 52 matches were played and covered on television, the competition was attended by 75 thousand fans and 186 journalists from around the world. In 2017, the International Tennis Tournament in Wuhan (China) was held from September 25 to October 1.

The city of Wuhan is not a popular place for tourists to visit, but coming here, everyone will be surprised by the many interesting sights and admired by the beauty of its buildings and parks.

Wuhan (Wǔhàn) is a sub-provincial city in Hubei Province of China, the administrative center of Hubei Province, the most populous city in central China. It stands at the confluence of the Yangtze and Han rivers.

Attractions

Huanghalou, which means Yellow Crane Tower in Chinese, was built in 223 AD. on the slope of Snake Mountain, near the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province. It is the symbol of the city of Wuhan and one of the three largest towers in southern China.

The Yangtze River Bridge in Wuhan, Hubei Province is the first railway and highway bridge across the Yangtze River.

The famous villa of Chairman Mao Zedong in Wuhan is located on the shores of the East Lake in the Wuchang district. The villa once served as home to Chairman Mao and other ruling members of the Politburo.

The Hubei Provincial Museum is located in Wuchang District, Wuhan. It is the only local history museum in Hubei Province, containing a huge collection of cultural relics found in the area, including pottery, porcelain, jade, bronze vessels, ancient weapons and musical instruments.

As one of the four largest Buddhist temples in Hubei Province, Guiyuan Temple is widely known in Wuhan. The temple was built by a monk named Bai Guang in 1658 at the end of the Ming Dynasty.

Weather in Wuhan

Wuhan is located in a monsoon-prone subtropical climate characterized by four distinct seasons, warm summers and winters. The average temperature in January is 3.0 °C, in June 29.3 °C. Summer accounts for up to 135 days, spring and autumn last about 60 days. During the summer season, the amount of rainfall reaches 1205 mm. The frost-free period is 240 days.

How to get there

Tianhe Airport

Wuhan Tianhe Airport served 14 million passengers in 2012 (14th place among Chinese airports). Since July 30, 2014, China Southern has operated regular flights Moscow - Wuhan - Guangzhou (travel time 8 hours).

Metro

In September 2004, Wuhan became the sixth Chinese city to have a metro (after Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen). The first 10.2 km of the line (10 stations) are on the surface. The minimum interval between two trains is 90 seconds. In 2010, the first line was extended to 25 stations. In 2012, a second line with 21 stations opened.

Brief video review

Hello, dear readers!

Today we will tell you about the ancient and unusual city of Wuhan in China. This metropolis - this term in Asia refers to large populated areas, especially the main cities of provinces - is the administrative center of Hubei and has a significant influence on the political and economic life of China, its transport and educational systems, finance and culture.

Wuhan has had its name since 1927. With a population of over ten million inhabitants, it is considered the most densely populated in the central part of the Middle Kingdom. You will find out where it is located, how to get there, what interesting sights are worth seeing in it and get acquainted with its history, rich in important events.

Geographical position

Wuhan is located on the Jianghan Plain, in its eastern part, where the mouth of the left tributary of the Yangtze River, the Han Shui, is located. In the literature you can find the term “tricity” in relation to this locality, because in fact it consists of three cities:

• Wuchang,
• Hankou,
• Hanyang.

On the map they are on the same level, separated by the Yangtze and Han Shui. The three former cities are connected by bridges. The first bridge to be built (1957) is called the First Bridge.

Four highways, a railway track and pedestrian paths run along it. The other two cable-stayed suspension bridges have six-lane traffic. Their capacity is fifty thousand cars per day.

The southern part of Wuhan is hilly. Since the Yangtze changed its course many times, the city has a significant number of lakes and swamps, about one hundred and fifty of them. In this regard, exit roads are laid along dams. The ring road surrounds Wuhan on the outer side of the lake area.

From the history

The formation of the city began with Hanyang during the reign of the Liu Dynasty in the Han Empire. It was then an important port. At the beginning of the 3rd century, it and Wuchang were surrounded by protective walls, and from then on the history of Wuhan began, dating back more than three thousand years.

Then, on the right bank of the Yangtze, in Wuchang, the Yellow Crane Tower was erected. Wuchang was a scientific center, and it also became famous for various types of creativity, in particular poetry. During Yuan times, it became the capital of ancient Huguang, which is now represented on the map by Hubei and Hunan.

Yellow Crane Tower

And about three centuries ago, Hankou became one of the main commercial centers of the Celestial Empire, due to the export of tea, which was supplied to:

• Russian Empire,
• Mongols,
• to the northern part of China, where this plant was not grown.

Following the results of the Second Opium War (you can read more about it), the British, Germans, French, Japanese and Russians opened their concessions in Hankow. Russian traders first located their enterprises in Yangloudun, where the most valuable tea was cultivated, and then the merchant Litvinov moved his factory to Hankou, and it grew into the largest tea production. Tea pressed into slabs was produced here until the beginning of the 20th century.

In the century before last, Wuhan acquired a railway connection in the direction from north to south. It allows rail cargo to be delivered from all over the country to the port waters and transported further along the river.

The year 1911 was marked by the Wuchang Uprising, which began the Xinghai Revolution. It originated within the walls of Wuhanuniversity, considered one of the oldest local educational institutions. As a result, the Qing Empire ceased to exist, and a republic was formed in the country.

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) attracted over 3,500 Russian volunteers to defend China. The longest battle in the entire history of this war took place near Wuhan - it lasted more than 4 months. About a hundred Soviet pilots gave their lives in the defense of Wuhan.

A monument erected here after the war is dedicated to them. The bilingual inscription honors volunteer heroes. The book “Eagles Over Wuhan”, published two years ago, is also dedicated to the pilots.

Monument to Soviet pilots, Wuhan

Since the Japanese used captured Wuhan as a transport hub for their military maneuvers in 1938, it was subjected to massive bombing by the United States. They were produced by the American Air Force by the Fourteenth Army.

1967 Time of the cultural revolution. Wuhan serves as the site of a violent clash between detachments of students and schoolchildren - the Red Guards. The population had to defend itself from opposing associations by forming their own groups for self-defense.

Chen Zaidao, who then commanded the Wuhan Military Region, arbitrarily used army forces to eliminate the outrages, disobeying the orders of his superiors in the capital.

Military units were sent against him, and Zaidao had to submit. His unauthorized act was condemned. However, his experience in establishing order was useful in subsequent events to eliminate political protests and the Red Guards themselves.

Chen Zaidao (1909-1993)

Wuhan frequently suffered from devastating floods. 1954 was the year of the most significant of them, when the water level reached almost twenty-eight meters. 15 years later, a monument was unveiled in Hankou to commemorate this event.

It is engraved with the words of Mao Zedong, a Chinese statesman and politician of the 20th century, with which he addressed local heroic residents, and his poetic work “Swimming”.

Mao Tse Tung (1893—1976)

It mentions the need to build dams to protect against natural disasters. Fulfilling Mao's behests, the Sanxia and Gezhouba hydroelectric power stations were later built higher up on the Yangtze.

It was in this glorious city, at the age of sixty-three, that Mao Zedong swam the Yangtze River for the first time, demonstrating excellent physical shape. In the next decade, he repeated this swim forty-two times, seventeen of them in the same place, in Wuhan.

Transport

Wuhan's location has earned it the name "Highway of Nine Provinces", which in Chinese is called "Jusheng Tongqu". Roads, expressways, and railways literally penetrate it in all directions, providing connections with all major populated areas of China.

There is also a metro here, but the swampy area does not allow it to develop properly, so there are only eight lines so far, but it is planned to increase their number to 25. Tourists, although they come here not as often as in other popular cities in this country, are comfortable will travel by bus and taxi.

When planning a trip, you need to take into account local time: the Chinese live in the UTC+8 time zone. Guests are received at the airport and railway stations.

Tianhe Airport serves up to fourteen million passengers per year. You can fly here from Moscow non-stop in 8 hours on China Southern airlines. More recently, the city had 2 railway stations. Now Wuchang has another one, built specifically for modern trains running to Guangzhou and Beijing. Their speed is 350 km/h.

Tianhe International Airport, Wuhan

Weather

When choosing a travel date, you should take into account that the climate here is subtropical. The hills of the city are decorated with palm trees and vines. Temperatures are on average above zero all year round. The weather already in April is quite comfortable for a stay, from 17° Celsius. Experts recommend visiting Wuhan either in March-April or in September-October.

Now let's find out what a tourist should pay attention to in this city.

Guiyuan Shrine

The name of this monastery translates as “return to the source.” It played an important role in the Buddhist history of China and completes the top four monastic complexes in Hubei. The plan of the monastery complex is interesting because its five courtyards together resemble the outlines of a Buddhist cassock.

Guiyuan Monastery, Wuhan

It was founded in the 17th century on the site of old buildings from the Minsk era. The buildings were repeatedly destroyed and reconstructed; at the moment there are about two hundred buildings of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. Entering the gate, you find yourself in the Eastern Courtyard.

To the right of it is the Northern Courtyard, where the Pavilion of the Collection of Sutras houses genuine wealth - seven thousand Buddhist manuscripts. Also here is:

• paintings,
• ritual objects,
• stone carvings,
• figurines,
• books,
• calligraphic writing samples.

“Guarding” all this is a statue of a jade Buddha, dating back to approximately the 4th century.

North Courtyard of Guiyuan Monastery

Something interesting awaits curious tourists in the Southern Courtyard. Here is the Hall of the Arhats: 500 clay sculptures, covered with gilding, as tall as a person, weighing no more than twenty-five kilograms. It is interesting that among them it is not possible to find similar ones: their position, facial expression, mood are different and are conveyed vividly and vividly.

It is customary to go to this hall to find out what will happen this year. To do this, men and women disperse in different directions: left and right, counting the statues by the number of years they have lived. The statue that corresponds by number to the age will predict fate by its appearance. Since photography is not allowed here, you should note the number of the statue and, at the exit from the hall, purchase a postcard depicting “your” arhat.

The figure of Buddha Shakyamuni and a lion, which is one of his previous incarnations, are in the hall, which is located in the Central Courtyard. There are sculptures of various saints, such as Guanyin. The Burmese presented another white stone Buddha, which weighs 105 tons, as a gift to the monastery complex.

Among other attractions that made the city famous, one can note the Yellow Crane Tower mentioned above. This tower is five stories high, just over fifty meters. At the bottom the building is about thirty meters in diameter, at the top it is already eighteen meters. In the middle of the room is a museum of decorative and applied arts.

The tower adorns Snake Mountain and is a symbol of Wuhan. There is a beautiful story about how it was built.

One very poor Taoist came to have lunch at the tavern of a certain Xing. The owner of the tavern did not raise his hand to demand money from him for food, he was so poor. Once a beggar decorated the wall of the establishment with an image of a yellow crane using an orange peel. The bird was not easy: when someone clapped their hands, it imitated dance moves.

The magical spectacle served as an influx of visitors, and the establishment began to flourish. This lasted for ten years, until one day an old beggar flew away on a bird forever. And Sin erected a tower on the site of his tavern in memory of this miracle. The Yellow Crane Tower is surrounded by beautiful gardens and parks.

Also nearby are:

• sculpture of a pair of cranes, symbolizing long life and fidelity in marriage in the Celestial Empire,
• pavilion with poems that Mao Zedong wrote about the tower,
• Bell of a thousand years of prosperity,
• Museum of stones,
• street with souvenirs,
• monument dedicated to the Wuchang uprising,
• Pavilion of White Clouds.

Another highlight of Wuhan is the East Lake - Donghu.

Together with the landscape areas around it, the lake occupies a fourth of the city. Cut by numerous bends, its shores gave the reservoir another name - lakes of ninety-nine bends.

Donghu Lake in China

In the spring, you can attend the Plum Blossom Festival in this city, and in the fall, you can attend an international tourism festival. In conclusion, we note that Wuhan’s sister cities are Izhevsk and Saratov.

Conclusion

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Useful information for tourists about Wuhan in China - geographical location, tourist infrastructure, map, architectural features and attractions.

Attractions

Guide