Aihui History Museum

The Aihui History Museum stands in the old town of Aigun, about 33 kilometres south of Heihe city centre, and documents one of the more consequential and less-discussed episodes in Sino-Russian border history. The Treaty of Aigun (1858) was signed here during a period when China's Qing dynasty was severely weakened, and it resulted in Russia gaining enormous tracts of territory north and east of the Amur River. The earthworks of the old Aigun city are still partially visible nearby.

The museum is bilingual — Chinese and Russian — which reflects the practical reality of a place that exists on the Sino-Russian border, and it is notably thorough in its documentation. Scale models of the old town, treaty documents, military artifacts, and accounts of everyday life in the 19th century borderlands make this one of the more substantive regional history museums in Heilongjiang. Allow at least two hours, and arrange transport from Heihe in advance as public connections are limited.

things to do museum
A story
The Treaty of Aigun, signed in 1858 in this town, transferred over 600,000 square kilometres of territory from China to Russia — roughly the area of modern France and Germany combined. China was in no position to resist. The museum documents this cession without rancour but without softening either: it is one of the few places in China where 19th-century humiliation at Russian hands is laid out plainly rather than folded into a general narrative of foreign aggression.