A Day in Yining: Color, music, and the rhythm of a slow city

"Can you still hear the bayan music drifting through Liuxing Street? Is the bread fresh out of Aliksandr's bakery?" – when these familiar lines reach your ears from different directions, you know you have arrived in Yining.

Yining is the capital of the Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, and it still preserves that pleasant "small-town feel." The unique charm of this small city can be summed up in three words: colorful, musical, and slow-paced. It is the kind of place where you can settle in, take it easy, and spend an entire day exploring with a smile on your face.

The Ili River Valley, where Yining sits, enjoys abundant rainfall and a dense network of rivers, creating a humid microclimate. Shaped by the valley topography and the westerlies, Yining has a mild and moist climate — neither bitterly cold in winter nor scorchingly hot in summer. This stands in stark contrast to the aridity of most other parts of Xinjiang. Walking through the city, you might even feel as if you have been transported to a water town in the Jiangnan region of southern China.

The Ili River, which flows right through the city, is well worth a visit. Its 49-kilometre winding shoreline nurtures Yining's distinctive landscape. Standing on the riverbank and looking into the distance, you can watch the sunset hang at the end of the water and sky, its afterglow painting the entire river in shimmering gold. The wetlands along the banks stretch far and wide, with reeds swaying in the breeze and egrets occasionally taking flight, while the distant skyline of buildings completes the tranquil picture of a valley town.

Visitors enjoy a folk performance beneath grapevines in the Ili Old City cultural tourism zone in Yining City, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (File photo)

If you are a food lover, Yining will not disappoint you. The local ice cream is handmade with fresh milk, eggs, and honey – not a single drop of water added – resulting in a dense, creamy texture. The Gulandanmu ice-cream shop on Liuxing Street is a popular spot, but you can also savour authentic treats from pushcarts in the alleys. As you stroll through the Liuxing Street and Kazanqi neighbourhoods, samsas (baked meat pies), pilaf, and yogurt will bring new delights to your palate.

June through September is the best season to visit Yining, but winter has its own surprises too: fewer tourists, cheaper accommodation, and a return to tranquillity. Sipping tea while listening to the dombra (a traditional Kazak stringed instrument) in the quiet season offers a different kind of charm.

Yining is also a transport hub in Xinjiang, making it an ideal "supply stop" for the Ili loop route. From here, you can easily reach well-known attractions such as Sayram Lake, Guozigou Valley, Narat Grassland, and the Duku Highway.

Within the city itself, the Ili Old City Cultural Tourism Zone is an absolute must-see.

Known as the "living ancient city" in blue, this zone has a history of nearly 300 years and contains more than 300 buildings dating from the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China era. As you step into the Ili Old City Cultural Tourism Zone, the crisp jingling of bells and the clip-clop of horse hooves greet your ears. Before you hurry off, take a horse-drawn carriage (called a hadik locally) to weave through the lanes and alleyways. It's like stepping into a living museum of handicrafts – saddle-making, ironwork, woodcarving – many artisans work right by the roadside. At the "Pujiang Leather Workshop," you can even make a small leather souvenir with your own hands.

The Ili Old City Cultural Tourism Zone is best visited in the morning, when the light is good and there are relatively fewer tourists. The blue-painted walls look especially striking under the sun, making for great photos.

Tourists taking sightseeing carts explore the winding lanes of the Ili Old City cultural tourism zone in Yining City, Ili Kazak Autonomous Prefecture, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (File photo)

After a morning in the Old City, head to Liuxing Street – a hexagonal "musical fairy tale" – in the afternoon.

Liuxing Street was planned and built in the 1930s. From above, it forms a perfect regular hexagon, with six main streets radiating from a central plaza. This area is a microcosm of multi-ethnic co-existence.

Walking along Liuxing Street, you will see lake-blue courtyard walls, bright yellow wooden doors, emerald-green window lattices – the whole neighbourhood looks like a tipped-over palette. These colors is not manufactured for tourists; it is the everyday aesthetic of the local residents, passed down through generations.

Liuxing Street is something of a maze. The main attractions lie in the hexagonal area where Jiefang West Road meets Gongren Street. If you're using navigation, be sure to pinpoint either the "Liuxing Street Accordion Museum" or the "Main Gate of the Liuxing Street Historical and Cultural District" – otherwise, you can easily get lost in the criss-crossing lanes.

Inside the Accordion Museum, more than 800 antique instruments collected by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Zazulin, a local Russian resident, are piled from the walls right up to the vaulted ceiling. They range from 19th-century wooden antiques to modern electronic accordions – the smallest no bigger than a palm, the heaviest weighing over 16 kg. On weekend afternoons, small concerts are held, with local accordionists performing live. Their music drifts through the glass windows out into the street, even making passersby stop to listen.

Wandering through Liuxing Street, you can stumble upon a "concert" at any time. Just as a bar band's impromptu jam session ends, you might follow the beat of a drum a few steps away and hear another burst of bayan music, and then turn around to join a circle of people dancing the Kara Jorga (a traditional Xinjiang dance).

A five-minute walk brings you to the Intangible Cultural Heritage Workshop, where you can try your hand at national-level ICH crafts – Kazakh embroidery, Uygur musical-instrument making, and traditional dairy-product preparation.

(Source: People’s Daily, Reporter: Li Yanan)