Ibn Sina (Lenin Peak)

Ibn Sina, formerly known as Lenin Peak, is the second-highest peak in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, towering at 23,406 feet in height. The mountain is located in the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region, directly on Tajikistan's border with Kyrgyzstan. Ibn Sina's parent range is the Trans-Alay Range, which is part of the larger Pamir mountain range. One of the five snow leopard summits is Ibn Sina. Tajikistan called the peak Ibn Sina in 2006. It takes its name from the Persian polymath Abu Ali ibn Sina (c.980-1037). The peak was originally climbed in 1928 by Austrian Erwin Schneider (1906-87) and Germans Eugen Allwein (1900-82) and Karl Wien (c.1906-1937).

The first expedition to this region of Central Asia took place between 1774 and 1782. The involuntary voyage of the slave Filipp Efremov (an ethnic Russian) who fled from slavery in Bukhara is said to be the first recorded transit in the area. He passed via the Fergana Valley, then Osh, the Chigirik Pass, and the Terekdavan Pass before crossing the Karakorum. He was the first European to pass across the Alai Mountains.

The Trans-Alai (Zaalayskiy) Range and its major peak were found by Alexei Pavlovich Fedchenko in 1871, kicking off scientific excursions to the Alai Mountains. In the early twentieth century, the expedition of Nikolai Leopol'dovich Korzhenevskiy was likely the closest to the base of the eventual Lenin Peak.

Height: 23,406 feet

Location: Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan