Fulaerji Hong'an Hotel

Tucked away at No. 2 Youyi Road in Qiqihar’s Fulaerji District, the Hong'an Hotel stands as a quiet marker of China’s early industrial ambitions. Constructed during the First Five-Year Plan in the 1950s, the three-story red brick building features a distinct imitation Soviet architectural style. The local government originally built the facility to house Soviet experts who traveled to Heilongjiang to engineer massive national projects, specifically Beiman Special Steel and China First Heavy Industries. The hotel functioned as a comfortable retreat for these engineers. The grounds included a densely wooded courtyard planted with pear, apricot, and crabapple trees, alongside a bustling dining hall and a dance floor.

Over the decades, the Hong'an Hotel evolved into a premier hospitality venue, eventually operating as a three-star establishment with over seventy rooms. It hosted prominent figures and events that mirrored the shifting political and cultural landscape of the country. In the late summer of 1975, national leader Chen Yun stayed at the hotel while inspecting the nearby machinery plants during a period of economic restructuring. Nearly a decade later, in 1984, the hotel’s second floor became the gathering place for a national Armed Police literary training program. Participants fondly remembered this gathering as the foundational academy for a generation of military writers.

The trajectory of the Hong'an Hotel closely followed the fortunes of the state-owned enterprises it served. Originally managed by the local steel plant, control later passed to the district government. By the late 1990s, corporate restructuring and economic shifts led to a steady decline in business. Today, the hotel is entirely closed. The once-elegant red brick facade is severely dilapidated, and the property sits idle. A 2018 environmental inspection formally confirmed its complete inactivity. For museum visitors, the ruins of the Hong'an Hotel offer a direct look at the physical remnants of a bygone industrial era, capturing the rise and quiet fade of a twentieth-century boomtown.