At the end of the XIX century. Russian railway workers started the construction works of the CER junction centre, which eventually led to the emergence of an entire city on a leased territory in Northern Manchuria. The territory where the Chinese Eastern Railway was laid and Harbin was built was leased from China as a result of Russian-Chinese negotiations in 1896. This article outlines a very important and multifaceted problem of building new spaces on the leased territory in Northern Manchuria in the city of Harbin. This resulted in socialization of a new locus that became a meeting place for different cultures and intercultural interactions. Russian emigrants, as well as the employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway, created new spaces on Chinese territory, with different rules and laws. For several decades of the XX century. Harbin was a frontier city. History of North-eastern China at the end of the 19th - first half of the 20th centuries is the history of trains and railroad workers, the road from rural hinterland to industrial civilization. As a result of socialization of space by Russians, Harbin has turned from a nodal center of the Chinese Eastern Railway into an innovative city of the 20th century with high growth rates in China.

At the end of the XIX century. Russian railway workers started the construction works of the CER junction centre, which eventually led to the emergence of an entire city on a leased territory in Northern Manchuria. The territory where the Chinese Eastern Railway was laid and Harbin was built was leased from China as a result of Russian-Chinese negotiations in 1896. This article outlines a very important and multifaceted problem of building new spaces on the leased territory in Northern Manchuria in the city of Harbin. This resulted in socialization of a new locus that became a meeting place for different cultures and intercultural interactions. Russian emigrants, as well as the employees of the Chinese Eastern Railway, created new spaces on Chinese territory, with different rules and laws. For several decades of the XX century. Harbin was a frontier city. History of North-eastern China at the end of the 19th - first half of the 20th centuries is the history of trains and railroad workers, the road from rural hinterland to industrial civilization. As a result of socialization of space by Russians, Harbin has turned from a nodal center of the Chinese Eastern Railway into an innovative city of the 20th century with high growth rates in China.