HOHHOT — A domed ceiling painted with cherubs decorates the airport. Castlelike facades line the boulevards, and oversized matryoshka doll-shaped hotels loom overhead. This place may look like a Russian fairy tale town, but it's actually a city in China.
Located in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region and bordering both Russia and Mongolia, Manzhouli has long served as China's largest land port and a key hub for cross-border trade.
Once dependent on commerce, it is now embracing a new growth engine — tourism — as its unique cultural charm and streamlined Customs procedures draw an increasing number of visitors.
For tourists, no trip is complete without a photo at the national boundary marker. At the Manzhouli border gate scenic area, tourists gather to snap pictures with the landmark, explore exhibits tracing the city's border history, and stock up on Russian cookies, honey and binoculars, all without ever leaving Chinese soil.
"Just over that narrow strip of land is another country," said Liu Hongchao, a tourist from Henan province, gesturing toward the border as his friends snapped photos. "It feels surreal to see two nations at once."
The influx of visitors is reshaping the city's character.
At the China-Russia border tourism zone — a 5A-rated attraction, the highest in China — visitors flock to the iconic matryoshka hotel for selfies, browse bustling souvenir stalls, and often stay the night. The local Russian circus plays to packed audiences of Chinese tourists. In the city center, a restaurant called Xinlidu regularly sees lines out the door, even on weekdays, with diners from both China and Russia.
This boom is benefiting not only locals, but also Russian businesses. At a tourism zone in Manzhouli, Victoria, who sells amber jewelry, speaks little Chinese but skillfully haggles with customers using a calculator. Referring to her Chinese partners as "like brothers", she says the city "feels like a second home".
Manzhouli is part of a growing tourism trend. Sharing land borders with 14 countries, China's border regions are increasingly reinventing themselves as attractive tourist destinations.
At Heishantou Port in Ergune, Inner Mongolia's northernmost point, visitors can enjoy a river cruise that glides alongside the Russian border. Meanwhile, in Horgos, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, a cross-border cooperation zone near Kazakhstan, border crossings surged by more than 70 percent year-on-year from January to mid-July.
On Xiaohongshu, China's popular lifestyle social media platform, the topic "border ports" has attracted nearly 4 million views, with users sharing tips on hidden gems like where to find the finest Russian honey, how to capture the perfect photo at the border marker, and which restaurants serve the most authentic foreign cuisine.
A tourist from Jiangsu province, reflecting on a visit to three Inner Mongolian border checkpoints, summed it up simply on social media: "Standing at that border gate, I felt a rush of pride. Here, two worlds meet, and you feel deeply, unshakably Chinese."
To fuel this momentum, China has encouraged its border regions to develop pilot zones for border tourism and cross-border cooperation areas. On June 1, revised national border tourism regulations came into effect, aiming to enhance cross-border collaboration and foster unique, attractive destinations.
The geographical location endows border cities with unique tourism resources and development advantages, said Gao Shunli, a researcher at the tourism research center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "With professional development based on local conditions, these regions can become 'blue chip stocks' in the tourism market."
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