Xingkai Lake’s Autumn Forests Draw Visitors to China-Russia Border

What changed

Autumn has reached Xingkai Lake, the China-Russia border lake in Heilongjiang, and its multicolored forests are drawing visitors from across China. The season’s star attraction is a natural arch of intertwined red and yellow branches known online as the “tree hollow,” where visitors are stopping for photographs.

A group of nine visitors from Wuzhi, Henan, came to see the scenery. One visitor said he planned to return.

Why it matters

This is a small but vivid example of how a seasonal landscape can become a destination in its own right. At Xingkai Lake, the draw is not a built attraction or a scheduled event. It is a short autumn window: broad water, bright forest and sunlight filtering through the branches.

The lake’s border setting adds to the scene’s character, but the visitor experience is thoroughly local and immediate. People are arriving to walk among the trees, take pictures and spend time beside the water. The “tree hollow” gives that wider landscape a single, memorable frame, the sort of image that can turn a quiet viewpoint into a popular stop.