ÜRÜMQI is the political, industrial and economic capital of Xinjiang, and by far the largest city in the region, with a population of well over one million, the overwhelming majority of whom are Han Chinese. Its name means "Beautiful Pastures" - a slightly misleading description these days, even though the skyline to the east is marked by the graceful snowy peaks of the Tian Shan.
For travellers arriving from western China or Central Asia, this will be the first truly Chinese city on your route, and the first chance to witness the consumer boom that is sweeping the high streets of China, in the shape of smart department stores and designer clothes boutiques. So vital has the city become as China's most westerly industrial outpost that in 1992 it was officially decreed a "port" to enable it to impose the special low rates of tax, normally permitted only in port cities such as Shanghai and Xiamen, as a means of luring in capital - an unusual distinction, to say the least, for a city located 2000km from the nearest sea.
If you're coming from eastern China, however, the city may not seem particularly exciting given its lack of historical identity. Nevertheless, it does have lively bazaars, as well as a certain pioneering feel to it - the shiny, new highrise office buildings and hotels downtown seem to suggest a great metropolis, until you notice the barren, scrubby hillsides just around the corner and realize that the whole place has fairly recently been dropped into the desert. Apart from this, the main reason to visit Ürümqi is to arrange a trip to Tian Chi (Heaven Lake), three hours east of the city by bus.
Under the name of Dihua, Ürümqi became the capital of Xinjiang in the late nineteenth century. During the first half of the twentieth century the city was something of a battleground for feuding warlords - in 1916 Governor Yang Zengxin invited all his personal enemies to a dinner party here, and then had their heads cut off one by one during the course of the banquet. Later, shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Soviet troops entered the city to help quell a Muslim rebellion; they stayed until 1960. Ürümqi began to emerge from its extreme backwardness only with the completion of the Lanzhou-Ürümqi rail line in 1963. This more than anything helped to integrate the city, economically and psychologically, into the People's Republic. And with the opening of the Ürümqi-Almaty rail line in 1991, the final link in the long-heralded direct route from China through Central Asia to Europe was complete.
The City
In the vicinity of the Hongshan Hotel are a couple of pleasant parks which are useful for orientation. One is Renmin Park , a little to the west of the Hongshan, which runs from north to south right through the centre of the city, cooled by various streams and lakes. The other is Hongshan Park (Red Mountain Park; daily 6am-5.30pm, ¥10), clearly visible on a hill to the north of the hotel - the park entrance is about ten minutes' walk north of the Hongshan, and it's a pleasant place with boating, pavilions and pagodas, and a steep hill to climb. At the top it's cool and shady and you can sit and have a drink, or watch the locals clambering about over the rocks. The view over the city, with desert and snowy mountains in the background, is spectacular; the number of tower cranes will also give a measure of the amount of construction going on in Ürümqi.
The major sight in Ürümqi is the Xinjiang Regional Museum (Mon-Sat 9.30am-7pm, Sun 9.30am-5pm; ¥5 downstairs exhibits, ¥15 upstairs) on Xibei Lu in the north of the city. The building itself is an interesting one, with a palpable Russian influence - painted reliefs as well as a great, green dome. Unfortunately, given the huge size of the museum, the number of rooms open to display at any one time is limited. The downstairs exhibit focuses on the Silk Road and includes an array of tools, fabrics, coins, jade pieces, pots and pictures. Unfortunately, there are no English labels, and the rooms are very gloomy. The upstairs exhibit, on the other hand, does have some English explanations and is much more impressive, including a number of ancient and particularly well-preserved corpses retrieved from the dry desert sands, including the so-called "Loulan Beauty", a woman with long fair hair, allegedly 3800 years old, recovered from the city of Loulan on the southern Silk Road. The Loulan Beauty, of a distinctly non-Chinese appearance, has been taken to heart by some Uigur Nationalists as a symbol of the antiquity (and validity) of their claims for sovereignty over these lands. There are also some antique shops to browse in on the museum site. To reach the museum take bus #7 from Xinhua Bei Lu.
Shopping in Ürümqi can be quite an eye-opener in the crowded, affluent streets just south of Minzhu Lu and west of Jiefang Bei Lu. Fashion boutiques with pseudo-French and Italian names have started springing up - Hong Kong consumerism has reached China's final frontier. For a taste of something with a more local flavour, head south of here, down Jiefang Nan Lu. The shops become steadily more Uigur-orientated, until you reach the Erdaoqiao market, the main Uigur bazaar of the city. Here it's the usual dusty jumble of kebabs, melons, clothes and knives being traded amid jostling donkey carts. The major mosques of the city are all located in this area, too, around Jiefang Nan Lu.
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