“Truc Bach Night”, the latest tourism product launched by Ba Dinh District’s Truc Bach Ward, attracted some 40,000 visitors during its three-day organization (November 29-December 1).

Visitors at the "Truc Bach Night" event. Photo: Hoang Huy/The Hanoi Times

This marks the first time Hanoi has introduced a living "museum" that vividly recreates the streets, spaces, and cultural life of the subsidy period in an outdoor setting.

Such impressive number of visitors makes the event one of Hanoi's most unique nighttime tourism products, offering both domestic and international guests a lively, fascinating, and refreshingly nostalgic experience.

The standout feature of "Truc Bach Night" was its immersive recreation of the subsidy-era atmosphere. The entire event space was meticulously designed as a real-life movie set, resembling an authentic old neighborhood.

Visitors traveled back in time with settings like vintage trams, state-run department stores, and nostalgic urban landscapes that brought memories of one of the country's most distinctive historical periods.

In addition to themed subsidy-era kiosks, the soul of the program was the four tramcars, themed “Hanoi Street Museum". These tramcars were renovated into unique spaces reflecting Hanoi and Vietnamese culinary traditions with rice and grains, noodles (pho and bun), old-time kitchens and dining memories.

The tram cars served as cultural "mini-museums on wheels", taking visitors on a journey of heritage and offering a memorable stop for those curious about Vietnam’s history and culture.

Visitors immersed themselves in the life of old Hanoi through familiar artifacts like century-old electric poles, public water taps, neighborhood bulletin boards, and traditional modes of transportation. They also discovered historic street trades and enjoyed interactive art performances, rich culinary delights, and captivating stories steeped in Hanoi’s charm.

The series of interactive community experiences, called Cultural Harmony, was the key part of Truc Bach Night, under the Tram Line No. 6 project. Specific highlights included experiential shows such as "The Flow of Pho", "Fragrance of Young Rice", "Tea Stories of the Past", "Subsidy-Era Culinary Memories", and "Vietnamese Coffee". Interactive street performances like "Stories of the Subsidy-Era Streets," a music and beer festival inspired by the subsidy era, and live storytelling further enriched the event.

“Truc Bach Night” was among the key events hosted by Truc Bach Ward to make its Dao Ngoc-Ngu Xa pedestrian zone more attractive to visitors. In August 2024, Ngoc Island - Truc Bach in Ba Dinh District was recognized by Hanoi as a city-level tourist destination.