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Added on the 07/01/2015 18:57:44 - Copyright : Reuters EN
Amsterdam residents enjoyed the city's frozen canals over the weekend, even ice skating on their surface for the first time in years. The 'Beast from the East,' a massive cold front originating from Siberia that brought blizzards and freezing temperatures to much of Europe, had a silver lining. The subzero temperatures froze parts of Amsterdam's iconic Prinsengracht and Keizersgracht canals hard enough to support ice skaters.
Skaters glided gracefully across the frozen surface of Lake Baikal, the world’s deepest freshwater lake, taking in the breathtaking winter scenery while skating across huge sheets of ice dozens of feet thick. The frozen Siberian lake offers a perfectly clear view of the lake bottom as the frozen ice is as clear as glass in many places. Ice skating from one end to the other takes about 2 weeks! How would you like to skate on this lake of glass?
Sculptors from around the world concluded the latest Harbin International Ice-Assemblage Sculpture Championship on Thursday, producing some of the most incredible ice sculptures ever carved for arguably the most famous ice sculpting competition in the world. Thirteen teams from seven countries had just 4.5 days to complete their offerings, with each team receiving 10 large blocks of ice taken from Harbin's Songhua river. This year's first prize went to Team Russia Amursk for their ice dragons.
The worlds biggest indoor ski resort opened it's doors to lovers of downhill winter sports last weekend in Harbin, China's 'Ice City' located on the border with Russia. The Harbin Wanda Indoor Ski and Winter Resort covers an area of over 860,000 square feet and boasts six different runs, with the longest stretching 1640 feet, the fourth longest in the world. Up to 3000 people can enjoy the facilities at any one time. Wang Jianlin, who is China's wealthist businessman, invested 40 billion yuan, or just under 6 billion dollars, to build the facility.
‘The Ice Library of Wonders’, a 200 tonne ice sculpture on the shores of Lake Baikal in the Russia town of Baikalsk, was unveiled on Sunday. A massive labyrinth of ice walls, the ice library features work by some of the world's best ice artists. The walls of the structure are formed of ice blocks, each block symbolising an open book in the library. The blocks, or books, have been inscribed with dreams and wishes submitted by real people from all over the world. So far, over a thousand dreams have been submitted online and carved into the ice. Phrases inscribed on the blocks of the wondrous ice library come in various languages including Russian, Ukrainian, German, English, Chinese and French. The Ice Library will stand until spring when it will melt, along with the inscribed dreams, back into Lake Baikal, where the dreams will intermingle with the waters of the deepest and most voluminous lake in the world. Unveiled for the first time this year, ‘The Ice Library of Wonders’ will be added to the Russian calendar as an annual festival.
U.S. President Barack Obama attends an outdoor arrival ceremony in heavy rain, as the first sitting U.S. president to visit Laos. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).
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