Harbin's Chinese Baroque quarter, one lane past where the restoration stops

Most of what gets photographed in Harbin is Russian: the domes on Sophia Square, the pedestrian run of Zhongyang Dajie. The buildings worth the walk sit two kilometres east, in Daowai (道外, Dàowài), where Chinese merchants a century ago hired local builders to copy European façades and put a Chinese courtyard behind them.

What Chinese Baroque means here

The style has a name — zhonghua baluoke (中华巴洛克) — and it is description rather than marketing. Street elevations carry scrolled pediments, plaster garlands and balustrades, and the ornament, looked at closely, resolves into pomegranates, bats and lotus. Through the arched entry the European part stops: inside is a quanlou (圈楼), a courtyard ringed on every floor by wooden galleries, with one well of sky above.

Where the restoration stops

Nan'er Daojie and the blocks around it have been repointed, repainted and let to tea shops and costume-photo studios. Walk a block or two east into the numbered lanes off Jingyu Street and the same architecture continues without the paint. Laundry crosses the galleries, coal is stacked in a corner, and a bicycle blocks the stair.

A courtyard with washing hung in it is not a museum.

判断一个院子是否还有人住，抬头看晾衣绳就行。

Eating in it

Daowai holds Harbin's older kitchens. Zhang Baopu (张包铺) on Shiliu Daojie has sold pork buns since the 1920s; Laodingfeng (老鼎丰) on Jingyu Street sells Chinese pastries by weight from glass counters. The everyday thing is xunjiang (熏酱), smoked and braised meat sold cold and eaten at a plastic table.

Going

Come mid-morning, when light reaches the bottom of the courtyard wells. Winter is the honest season — the galleries ice over, the coal smoke sits low — but the courtyards are open to the sky, so dress for standing still. It is a half-hour walk east from Zhongyang Dajie.