Yamato Hotel Harbin

The current VIP Building of Longmen Building is located at No. 85 Hongjun Street, Nangang District, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province. It is located in front of Harbin Railway Station. It was built in 1901 and completed in February 1903. The construction area is 7198 square meters. It has two floors and one underground floor. It belongs to the Art Nouveau architectural style. It was designed and built by the China Eastern Railway Engineering Bureau. It was named the Middle East Railway Hotel at that time. It was the first building on Red Army Street (then named Station Street) and the first in Harbin. A luxury hotel. The hotel is equipped with a flush toilet, which was recently invented at the time, and the only wooden refrigerator that has been preserved and is still in use in China (a compressor was installed in 1991). The revolving door installed when it was first built is still in use today. During the Russo-Japanese War, it was temporarily turned into a field hospital for the Russian army. In 1907, it became a club for Russian officers. It was commonly known as "Gobidan Paradise" by Harbin people, and was later changed to the Russian Consulate General. In May 1926, the hotel underwent its first renovation, remodeling the facade and replacing the wooden floors with marble. Before the September 18th Incident, it was the hub of the China Eastern Railway and Harbin City. On March 23, 1935, the Soviet Union sold the Middle East Railway to Manchukuo for 140 million yen. In June of the following year, the hotel underwent a second renovation. The building area was expanded to today's size, and the architectural style was also integrated with Japanese characteristics. A rain shower was added in front of the building. take. On February 1, 1937, the hotel was renamed "Harbin Yamato Hotel" and placed under the jurisdiction of Manchuria Railway. Puyi's younger brother Pujie and his wife once stayed in Room 215. In April 1946, the People's Liberation Army occupied Harbin; in July of that year, the Northeast Railway Administration was established here. It became the office space of Director Chen Yun, Deputy Director Lu Zhengcao, and the residence of most of the cadres who took over the Northeast Railway. On May 1, 1950, it became the Soviet Expert Building of the China Changchun Railway Administration jointly organized by China and the Soviet Union. In 1952, after the Zhongchang Railway was handed over to China, it was placed under the Harbin Military Engineering Institute (Harbin Military Industry) and became a dedicated dormitory for the Soviet military advisory group under it. In 1960, when China and the Soviet Union were at odds with each other, the Soviet experts withdrew and changed it into a Kazakh military-industrial guest house. In 1968, the Harbin Railway Bureau took it back. It was initially used as the Railway Bureau Hospital and later changed to the Railway Bureau Guest House. In 1986, it became the first batch of first-class protected buildings recognized by Harbin City. On September 18, 1996, the Harbin Railway Bureau carried out the third overhaul of the building. It installed modern service facilities while retaining the original architectural style, and changed it into the VIP Building of Longmen Building. It has been fully open to the public since October 1997.