Mountains and peaks of foreign Asia. The highest peaks of the world on all continents. Climbing Everest

The most grandiose mountain systems in our country stretch from Altai to the Kopetdag for almost 2 thousand kilometers and form powerful natural boundaries on its borders with China and Afghanistan.

It is no coincidence that the southernmost link of the mountains of Central Asia, the Pamir Plateau, is elevated above all others: it is the most complex junction at the junction of two great mountain belts of the planet - the Alpine-Himalayan and Pamir-Chukchi. In the first of them, the greatest elevations gravitate towards this node: the alpine garlands of the Iranian Plateau, right at the junction with the Pamirs, reach heights of more than seven kilometers (up to 7690 meters) in the ridgesHindu Kush; from the southeast, even higher ranges of the Karakoram, Kunlun and Himalayas approach here.

At the same time, the Pamir Plateau also serves as the southwestern section of the Pamir-Chukchi belt, the neighboring links of which, starting from the Gissar-Alai, are located as if backstage, of which each more northern one is shifted to the east. Behind the huge Fergana Basin, the colossal Tien Shan was erected, not much inferior in height to the Pamirs. A separate northeastern link of the Tien Shan is formed by the mountains of the Dzhungar Alatau; Tarbagatai and Saur stand behind them.

The only exceptions to the picture of the latitudinal structure of irregularities are isolated “oblique” ridges like the Fergana and the fan of spurs at the western ends of the Gissar-Alai and Tien Shan. This play of strikes affected the different directions of tectonic stresses: some were latitudinal, others reflected the oblique orientation of deep faults - along them the western parts of Kunlun and the Himalayas were uplifted, and in our country - Kopet Dag and Mangyshlak. It is no coincidence that large depressions in the relief of the neighboring plains—the Karakum, Kyzylkum, and Chu—extend diagonally to the degree network; this helped to rush to the northwest and lower reaches largest Central Asian rivers. Thus, the listed directions are inherited from the ancient structural plan of the subsoil. Only the Pamirs rear up on the convex bend of the young Alpine folds to the north. The subsoil of the Gissar-Alai and Tien Shan folded back in the Paleozoic within the single Ural-Tien Shan arc, which deviated here to the southeast.

The current height of these mountains is the result of the enormous scale of recent uplifts. They captured both the young structures of the Pamirs and the ancient sections of the Ural-Tien Shan arc. Over 24 million years of the Neogene, the Pamirs were raised by 3400, and over the last million years (during the Quaternary period) by another 700 meters. And the scope and pace of uplifts near the Tien Shan and Gissar-Alai are even greater.

The rising blocks were often crushed, hummocked, or even crushed. Even ancient rigid structures have been corrugated with large bend radii. These bends - shafts and valleys - ran parallel to the strikes of the nearest arc of the Alpine-Himalayan zone. It is this corrugation that accounts for the elongation of the largest Central Asian ridges along the parallels.

The depressions separating the mountains have their own life. Sometimes basins, the bottom of which also rises, only lag behind the growing ridges nearby - this is how the Issyk-Kul and Naryn basins of the Tien Shan behave. But there are cases when the depressions themselves descend, and their bottoms are above sea level only because, as they sag, they are filled with sediment from neighboring mountains. Along the outskirts, these sediments themselves experience collapse - this is how the Fergana, Ili, and South Tajik depressions behave.

The mountains of Central Asia are among the most seismic in the world. In 1887 and 1911, Verny, now Alma-Ata, was destroyed, and in 1902, Andijan. In 1911, an earthquake shook the western Pamirs and caused a landslide that created Lake Sarez. Ashgabat was terribly destroyed in 1948, Garm and Khait in 1949, and Tashkent in 1966. The rapid restoration of both capitals in an earthquake-resistant version showed how it is possible to withstand the elements in the most seismic foothill zones.

These mountains are an important climatic divide, a barrier that has grown on the path of humid western air masses into the interior of the continent. Like mysterious ghosts, snowy ridges are visible through the dusty haze from the sultry desert plains of Turan. But it often happens that they are not visible, and not because the haze is thick, but because of the density of the clouds. The deserts do not receive a drop of rain for months, and the invisible Atlantic moisture, removed from saturation, does not reach the earth. Only when meeting mountain barriers does the air rise, moisture becomes visible and forms lingering fogs, heavy rains and snowfalls at levels above 2-3 kilometers. Humidification increases tenfold from the foothills to the ridges. Glaciers conserve moisture so that it can later be used to feed desert rivers. The water supply of the foothill plains, and with it the irrigation of fields, depends on the regime of replenishment and melting of these “ice reservoirs”. Therefore, it is important to study glaciers.

In the mountains of Central Asia they are the longest in the country. “Rivers of Ice” receive ice tributaries. Tree-like glaciers are so characteristic here that they are called Turkestan. Each of their tributaries carries its own lateral moraine to the core, and it begins to accompany the axial moraine of the main glacier. Therefore, median moraines of tree-shaped glaciers usually consist of several parallel embankments and resemble the picture of multi-track railway tracks.

Often you even have to fight with water. During summer showers and when lake dams break through, it happens that mud and stone streams—mudflows—rush to the foot of the mountains. Now entire regions are provided with anti-mudflow service: surveillance is carried out on “suspicious” mountain lakes that may threaten to break through, and barriers are erected along the paths of possible mudflows.

Snow-capped peaks are visible from the streets of almost every major city in Central Asia. For many city residents, these mountains look like an unreal world. But how much attractive power do they have for those who have at least once tasted temptation? mountain tourism! This is a world of amazing nature, one of the cradles of our mountaineering. All the sky-high heights are dominated by seven-thousand-meter peaks - Communism Peak (7495 meters), Victory Peak (7439 meters), Lenin Peak (7139 meters) and Evgenia Korzhenevskaya Peak (7105 meters).

The mountains of Central Asia are not just high, but also multi-tiered. Elevated foothill trails and terraces are densely dissected by ravines and form strips of mountain-desert and semi-desert bad lands - Adyrov. The lower mountain steps are the advanced ridges - counters. In the ridge zones, patches of ancient leveled surfaces survived, and in the east of the Pamirs and in the Central Tien Shan - entire plateaus. Even along pointed ridges over large areas, uniform levels with heights of about 4-6 thousand meters are visible.

Multi-story and living nature, changing from deserts at the foothills to eternal snow and ice at the tops with zones of mountain semi-deserts and steppes, forest-steppe and meadows; there are pistachio and juniper woodlands. In rocky areas there are many thorny cushion bushes. In the wind shadow, where downward air currents move away from saturation, meadows give way to mountain steppes and even high-mountain deserts.

Although it is now customary to separate the Tien Shan and Gissaro-Alai, there is no reason to ignore many of their similarities. It is reminiscent of it, first of all, by the deep conjugations of the structures of the southeastern branches of the Urals and Inner Kazakhstan, submerged under the Aral part of the Turan Plate, with the Tien Shan and Hissar-Alai. Both mountain systems rise on the elevated flank of the Ural-Tien Shan arc; in both, young latitudinal corrugation has crushed a very ancient complex-folded substrate into folds of large radius. The youngest alpine folds superimposed on pre-existing structures. Combined with a powerful general uplift, this created revived mountainous countries. Nowhere in our country have such ancient folded structures been subjected to such intense recent uplifts and risen so high.

Both mountainous countries are united by powerful modern glaciation and susceptibility to mudflows. The altitudinal zonation of the landscape has many common features. But the mountain-spruce forest-steppe, so characteristic of the northern slopes of the Tien Shan ranges, is replaced by juniper open forest on similar slopes of the Gissar-Alai. But in the south of both mountainous countries there are surviving tracts of lush deciduous forests.

The depths of these mountains are comparable in abundance of minerals. Their ore content is especially remarkable - the richness of ores of non-ferrous, minor and rare metals, as well as the presence of oil in the basins.

On the border of Siberia and Central Asia. To get from the mountains of Southern Siberia to the Tien Shan, you need to cross the Zaisan depression, drained by the Irtysh. It has already been said that the dam of the Bukhtarminskaya hydroelectric power station raised the level of the entire Lake Zaysan by 7 meters and forced it to flood the nearest shores. The backwater spread 100 kilometers up the Black Irtysh flowing into the lake. The depths were so insignificant that even now they rarely exceed 10 meters. The reservoir is navigable - fast "Rockets" and "Meteors", cargo tankers and barges move along it. The ice can be a meter or one and a half thick. In spring, it does not melt so much as it is consumed by the sun through evaporation. Seiners catch a lot of fish and endure real sea storms.

The expanded Zaisan has not lost its name and continues to delight the eye with its vast expanse and silky-whitish shine of the water surface. Winter in the basin is harsh in Siberian style, the semi-desert is more Central Asian, but such flat-bottomed depressions are much more characteristic of Central Asia. The entire basin is like a bay of Central Asian landscapes.

Mountains Tarbagatai and Saur with three-kilometer heights - this is also a buffer between Southern Siberia and Central Asia. There is still taiga on the slopes, semi-desert in the foothills, but the most extensive mountain steppes are here. At the southern foot of Tarbagatai, the anciently famous Chuguchak trade route runs into Xinjiang.

Tarbagatai is separated from the northeastern facade of the Tien Shan - the Dzhungar Alatau mountains - by a flat-bottomed tectonic depression, a direct continuation of the Balkhash-Alakol strip of depressions. This is a rubble-desert corridor with eternal drafts blowing out all the fine earth, the well-known Dzhungar Gate in world history - the most convenient, barrier-free passage from the Central Asian plateaus to Kazakhstan. It served as one of the most important routes for past migrations of peoples.

Mountains of Central Asia (Tian Shan, Gissar-Alay, Pamir)

Tien Shan stretches from west to east for 2,500 kilometers, of which 1,500 are on the territory of the Soviet republics - Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and the eastern thousand goes to Xinjiang. The high part of the highlands dominating the Tarim Basin was called Tien Shan by Chinese geographers in ancient times, that is, “ heavenly mountains" Later, Russian geographers extended this name to the ridges accompanying the Central Tien Shan from the north and west. Naturally, a further division of the highlands developed - in our part there are groups of ridges called Northern, Western and Inner Tien Shan (in addition to the already mentioned Central). Sloping plains fall at the foothills—more than half of the largest oases in Central Asia owe their moisture.

Many ridges in the west and center exceed 4 kilometers and carry eternal snow and glaciers. To the southeast the heights increase. Already Terskey-Alatau reaches its peaks in 5 kilometers, and Kokshaltau reaches 6 kilometers. At the eastern junction of these ridges, the Central Tien Shan is especially grandiose.

In the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic, the Tien Shan, built by Paleozoic folds, was leveled, but in the Neogene it was subject to powerful mountain-building movements - splitting and crushing into large folds. At this time it was erected as a reborn highland. The surviving plateaus with permafrost soil at altitudes of 3-4 kilometers - syrts - are occupied by excellent meadow-steppe pastures.

Permafrost, a northern phenomenon in the sunny south, is developed in areas with little snow. The peaks, frozen to the core, never thaw. As in the subpolar tundras, soils that float and are broken into polygons, swelling mounds, subsidence above the thawing lenses of ice, and ice wedges are visible here. There is steam above the rivers in winter - water, walled up by freezing ice, pours into cracks and forms quite Siberian-looking ice dams.

The Tien Shan is one of the most powerful centers of modern mountain glaciation in our country. Some valley glaciers stretch for tens of kilometers. And there are also funny “flat top glaciers”, lying motionless bodies on plateaus and deprived of feeding areas. There are no slopes above them from which ice could flow and snow fall; They don’t even have drooping tongues. The annual melting does not exceed the arrival of snow due to precipitation falling on the surface of the glaciers themselves.

There are two types of evidence about the double ancient glaciation. Cloaks of moraines with boulders lining the surface of the Syrt plateaus help to conclude that the first, largest of the two glaciations was covered by extensive covers. And the jagged alpine-like peaks of the highest ridges, circus-shaped armchairs and trough-shaped valleys with more recent accumulations of moraines prove that they could only be sculpted by the last, recent glaciation, the tongues of which did not creep out onto the plateaus.

The cooling of ice ages and the glaciers themselves significantly impoverished living nature. From the broad-leaved forests that previously covered the slopes, only tracts of walnut and other “wild fruit” trees in the south of the Fergana Range and Chatkal have survived. In the north of the Tien Shan, only the hardier apple-boyarka plantations have survived from the former mixed forests. Higher up the slopes they are replaced by forests of Tien Shan spruce. This vanguard of East Asian spruce forests has taken root on shady slopes above 1200 meters; the southern slopes are conquered by mountain steppes, often with tall grasses.

Tien Shan spruce trees are so slender that they are often compared to cypress trees

Terskey-Alatau Ridge

In two places the highlands are crossed by trans-Tien Shan tracts. The Naryn highway leads from the Chu Valley along the Boam Gorge to the Issyk-Kul Basin, crosses the tip of the Terskey-Alatau ridge in a through gorge and descends through the Dolon Pass, over 3 kilometers high, into the Naryn Basin of the Inner Tien Shan. Beyond Lake Chatyrkol the tract goes to Kashgar through the Kokshaltau ridge. The Susamyr, or Great Kyrgyz, tract connects the Chu Valley with the Fergana Basin. It overcomes the Kyrgyz ridge with the help of a tunnel under the Tyuz-Ashuu pass (“camel hump”, 3586 meters), through the Susamyr syrts it reaches the valley of the Naryn breakthrough through the Fergana ridge and serves as the most important artery for communication with the cities that arose near the hydroelectric stations of the Naryn cascade - Toktogul , Kara-Kul, coal-mining Tash-Kumyr. The route leads to the Jalalabad and Osh oases of Fergana.

Dzungarian Alatau it is in vain that they call it a ridge - this is an entire mountainous country, the northeastern link of the Tien Shan. It is separated from the rest of the highlands by the flat-bottomed Ili depression, and is connected to it only by the Boro-Khoro bridge outside our country. This is like an independent Tien Shan in miniature. There are spruce forests on the northern slopes, mountain steppes on the southern ones, desert-steppe foothills, and ridge surfaces with permafrost; there are mountain meadows and alpine highlands with glaciers and peaks above 4000 meters. There are also inland valleys with a semi-desert landscape. The subsoil contains valuable ores, for example polymetallic ores at Tekeli.

The “Dzungarian Tien Shan” has its own halo of flowering sloping plains with their unique fame. The shady slopes of the mountains and their western valleys, open to the fertile and fertile Semirechye, are especially well supplied with moisture. This name includes the entire southern slope of the Balkhash-Alakol depression, primarily Dzhetysu - “the land of seven rivers” flowing into Balkhash or drying up in dry deltas. Thus, the more western plain of the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau is also included in Semirechye (the city of Verny was the administrative center of the Semirechensk region). The heart of eastern Semirechye is now the regional city of Taldy-Kurgan, surrounded by parks.

Northern Tien Shan creates an outer frame for the middle parts of the highlands. The front chain of ridges here is formed by Ketmen, Zailiysky and Kyrgyz Alatau. Above Alma-Ata the frame turned out to be double - parallel to Zailiysky from the south, the Kungey-Alatau ridge, which dominates Issyk-Kul, stretches very close. In the form of an oblique northwestern spur, the Chu-Ili Mountains extend from the tip of the Trans-Ili Alatau, the watershed significance of which is reflected in their very name.

The most popular region of the Tien Shan is the Trans-Ili Alatau. Its fame was brought by its proximity to Almaty and the beauty of its mountain, forest and alpine landscapes. About 900 square kilometers of them are protected in the Alma-Ata Nature Reserve, where the mountains are crowned by a magnificent five-thousander - the Talgar snow massif.

In 1963, one of the corners of these mountains became the scene of a terrible disaster. The peace and beauty of the “Alma-Ata Ritsa” - Lake Issyk (not to be confused with Issyk-Kul!), dammed about 800 years ago by a landslide in a mountain valley - a blue-green eye among the steep slopes covered with spruce trees, a favorite vacation spot for Almaty residents.

On a sunny day there was thunder... out of a clear sky! A mud and stone stream burst into the lake with an artillery roar, which arose when a moraine lake broke out in the upper reaches of the Issychka River. The mudflow mass overflowed the reservoir, broke through the ancient dam, and through a gaping hole hundreds of meters deep, 5 million cubic meters of water rushed down the Issychka River. It was no longer a mud-stone, but a “water-stone” stream - it tossed and rolled stones as tall as a house, uprooted trees, demolished several streets in a foothill village and rushed into Ili, into which it flowed until its waters were withdrawn for irrigation. The “trophies” were taken along Ili even to Balkhash. Now it has been decided to revive Issyk - to return the emptied basin to its former lake beauty.

The two-stage Issyk mudflow was not the first to make us think about how to prevent such disasters; there have already been cases when cities and villages, including Alma-Ata, suffered from mudflow “invasions.” After all, the sloping plains themselves, on which cities are built, are composed of the outflows of these formidable and uncontrollable streams. This means that vulnerable objects need to be more reliably protected. Particularly dangerous mudflows hit Alma-Ata from the Malaya Almatinka valley, in which the popular Medeo stadium is located. Now his name is worthy of more than one sporting glory. In the 60s, an anti-mudflow dam almost a hundred meters high was erected here with the help of directed explosions. In 1973, it withstood the “test by combat” and stopped the first major mudflow. But the dam was at its limit. “Only mountains can resist mountains,” they said then, and they built a 50-meter dam-mountain.

Another dam was erected in the neighboring valley of the Bolshaya Almatinka River. And the Bartogay reservoir in the upper reaches of Chilik, with an area of ​​14 square kilometers and a capacity of 1/3 cubic kilometer, will supply water to the Big Almaty Canal, which has no relation to its namesake river. It is laid along the base of the Trans-Ili Alatau for more than 100 kilometers. Dozens of siphons (underground water conduits) will allow him to cross the lower reaches of many rivers flowing from the ridge. The water will come to the fields at the foothills, and even Alma-Ata will seem to be on a full-flowing river!

Of course, the proximity of the mountains brings more than just mudflow worries to the townspeople of the oases: it also pleases them with the splendor of the landscapes - forest and alpine, and at the same time, in the full sense of the word, suburban. Within easy reach near Alma-Ata, or rather, above it, as well as above Frunze and Tashkent, there are strings of tourist centers, ski resorts and health resorts - climatic, kumys, balneological.

It is interesting to compare the appearance of the two sloping plains on which Alma-Ata and Frunze grew - capitals, buried in the shady greenery of alleys and parks. Along the foothills of the mountains the Ili and Chu flow in the middle sections of their currents. But Ili, 50-70 kilometers away from the base, does not participate in the irrigation of foothill oases - all of them depend only on the rivers flowing directly from the Trans-Ili Alatau. The picture is different in Kyrgyzstan. The Chu, reaching the bottom of the inclined plain, turned to the west and became the main source of irrigation here, feeding the Bolshoi Chuisky (BChK), Atbashinsky and other canals; the entire valley between the Chu-Ili mountains and the Kyrgyz ridge is called Chui. In both stripes, farming is carried out in the Central Asian way - irrigated, but among the southern crops at these altitudes (700-900 meters) only rice and grapes coexist. The predominant areas are fields of wheat and yellow tobacco, melon fields, and vegetable gardens. The outskirts of Almaty are famous for their apple orchards, where amazingly sized aport apples ripen. The Chumysh hydroelectric complex commands the irrigation of the entire valley.

The Northern Tien Shan is separated from the Inner Tien Shan by the vast Issyk-Kul tectonic and still seismic basin, in which lies an amazing creation of nature - Issyk-Kul, a “warm”, that is, non-freezing, lake-sea, the surface of which is elevated more than 1600 meters above ocean level. The reservoir is huge: along its length for 178 kilometers the horizon is not visible, the impression is as if you are seeing a large bay open sea. Across the lake, 60 kilometers away, the shores would also be almost invisible, but above them they rise mountain ranges Kungey- and Terskey-Alatau are 4-5 kilometers high. The picture is especially impressive when their snowy ridges are doubled by reflections in the lake. And the depths here are completely marine - a little less than 700 meters.

Very close to the lake, almost touching its western corner, flows the Chu, which has just left the Orto-Tokoy reservoir. Its connection with the lake was renewed more than once through a temporary watercourse, but now the flow through the Boam Gorge has carried the entire river with it.

The area at the western tip of Issyk-Kul is unattractive; the port of Rybachye has only recently been decorated with greenery. To the east, the nature of the coasts becomes richer - a direct response to increased moisture: at the opposite end of the lake, rain falls 5-6 times more than in the west. The wet winds from the reservoir here truly breathed life into the landscape: the wheat fields sway, the melon fields and vegetable gardens turn green; Alleys of poplars and flowering gardens are reminiscent of the landscapes of Ukraine and Kuban. Not far from Przhevalsk bathing in the gardens, on the shore of one of the bays, there is an obelisk with an image of an eagle and a bas-relief - this is a monument to the grave of the traveler Przhevalsky who died here.

Wonderful bathing, all the delights of the sea south, but without the heat even at the height of summer (the altitude affects it!), healing springs and the grandeur of the mountain-lake landscape - all this has earned Issyk-Kul the rank of a health resort of all-Union significance. The resort at the radon springs in the valley of the “seven bulls” - Jety-Oguz - is especially life-giving; This is the Kyrgyz name for the ornate cliffs of brick-red sandstone at the foot of Terskey.

Part of the bottom of the basin and adjacent mountain slopes is protected in nine separate areas of the Issyk-Kul Nature Reserve.

Together with the Caspian, Aral and Balkhash, Issyk-Kul shares the fate of drainless lakes, the life of which depends on the influx of river waters. They spent it on irrigation, the flow decreased due to forest cuttings - the lake in response lowered the level by 3 meters.

Chingiz Aitmatov compared his mirror to the inevitably shrinking shagreen skin and inspiredly called for saving the “fragile pearls of Issyk-Kul.” After all, both the reservoir itself and the surrounding landscape suffer.

Perhaps some archaeologists rejoiced at the water leaving the shores. Once upon a time, the lake rose and flooded the coastal structures - divers were equipped to study them. Now underwater secrets have become available for land excavations. Medieval bricks and pottery shards have already been found in ancient muds, and stone tools even turned out to be Neanderthal.

To maintain the beauty and glory of Issyk-Kul, it is necessary to more decisively protect the lake from pollution; sharply reduce logging; to at least partially reorient irrigated grain and fodder farming to less water-intensive gardening... But increasingly there are calls to replenish the rivers that feed the lake with water from neighboring basins. The easiest way is to return the Chu River here. But its water is needed by the fields of the Chui Valley. Take it away from the tributaries of the middle reaches Or? But this will create another source of damage to the water balance of Balkhash.

Maintaining the advantages of Issyk-Kul is one of the incompletely resolved problems of environmental management in Central Asia.

To the south of Terskey lies the most celestial part of the highlands - the high-mountain desert Central Tien Shan. In the east, on the border with China, the gigantic Mustag node (ice mountains) rose with heights of 6-7 kilometers. Among the tree-like glaciers is Inylchek, the second longest in the country (59 kilometers).

Northern Inylchek Glacier

At the confluence of its two branches, an incredible lake turns violently blue on its icy shores, which is called humming and even speaking for the hum that periodically arises in it. Waters periodically escape through voids in the ice, lowering the level by tens of meters or even completely emptying the wild ice bath with stranded “white marble” icebergs. Then the multi-kilometer drainage tunnel is clogged, and the reservoir is filled again. The lake bears the name of the geographer and mountaineer Merzbacher who discovered it.

The southern facade of the mountains is formed by the eastern links of the border chain - the Kokshaltau ridge, crowned by the second highest peak in the country - Pobeda Peak. And on the middle spur of the Meridian Ridge rises the legendary Khan Tengri - “lord of the heavenly powers”. Its popularity was especially promoted by the chiseled regularity of the pyramidal peak and the fact that it culminates above the neighboring peaks more noticeably than the more vague Victory Peak.

To the west lies the Inner Tien Shan, which is also called the syrtov, or the edge of the jailoo - summer pastures. The calm, albeit fast flow of rivers on the reaches of longitudinal valleys gives way to bubbling rapids in through transverse gorges. On the syrts above 3 kilometers there are two vast lakes - the fresh flowing Sonkel and the flowless, bitter-salty Chatyrkol. Until recently, the icy waters of Sonkel were considered dead, but now Siberian peled and broad whitefish have been bred in it.

The core river here is Naryn, an energy hero. About 6 million kilowatts at more than 20 hydroelectric power stations will make it possible to obtain differences in its bed in through valleys. A total of six cascades will be created. The mighty Lower Naryn cascade consisting of the Toktogul, Kurpsai, Tashkumyr and two Uchkurgan hydroelectric stations is the first to be completed. Here, the Toktogul hydroelectric power station operates at full capacity—almost a million and a quarter kilowatts. Its reservoir held over 19 cubic kilometers of water, and the dam that dammed it near the young city of Kara-Kul rose more than 200 meters. Below, the path to the green-turquoise waters of Naryn is already blocked by the Kurpsai hydroelectric power station dam.

From the southwest, the Inner Tien Shan is fenced by the Fergana Range, which is drawn obliquely on the map, which in modern times was raised along an ancient deep fault. Its foothills are coal-bearing and oil-bearing, and the resort city of Jalal-Abad grew on the hot waters.

On the lower slopes of the ridge there are good relict walnut forests inherited from pre-Quaternary times. They also continue to the west, along the southern slopes of the Ugam ridge and Chatkal.

The extreme western protrusion of the Tien Shan is called the Western Tien Shan. The mountain node of the Talas Alatau, crowned by the 4.5-kilometer-high Manas peak, is adjacent to a lattice of ridges, elongated in five parallel rows and separated by large longitudinal valleys.

In the south, the coal-bearing valley of Akhangaran (Angren) is especially famous. One of the more northern valleys became famous for its cascade of 18 hydroelectric stations, Chirchik, and large valleys of its tributaries open to it - Chatkal, Pskem and Ugam, after which the adjacent ridges are named.

The combined delta of Chirchik and Akhangaran at the western end of this “pack” of ridges forms one of the richest oases in Central Asia - Tashkent. Numerous traces of 2000 years of history are intricately intertwined in its space. Today it is occupied by a huge city with a whole swarm of satellite cities. Tashkent, restored and transformed after the catastrophic earthquake of 1966, is lavishly decorated with greenery of parks and alleys, mirrors of reservoirs.

In the north, the depression between the Kyrgyz and Talas Alatau ridges is occupied by the flowering Talas Valley, at the exit from which the rich Dzhambul oasis is located near the mountains. To the west of the Tien Shan, a sword raised as if with a backhand goes away - the Karatau ridge - “black mountains”. The corner between it and other ridges of the Western Tien Shan is filled with the merged deltas of the Arys and its tributaries - this is another blooming oasis - Chimkent.

No part of the Tien Shan is so generously endowed with mineral wealth as the western one. Against the backdrop of the black-gray slopes of Karatau, the quarters of Kentau and Achisaya, where polymetallic ores are mined, and the cities of Zhanatas and Karatau are white - here is one of the world's largest phosphorite basins. It stretches along the mountains for 125 kilometers and contains more than one and a half billion tons of phosphorites.

The Kuraminsky ridge with the Karamazor slope is especially rich in ore. Based on the spectrum of minerals concentrated here, it is compared, albeit not without exaggeration, some with the Urals, some with Kola Peninsula. We will list only ores - iron and copper, polymetals, tungsten, molybdenum, bismuth, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, a number of rare metals; there is also gold.

The Kurama subsoil has been known since ancient times. The adits and other workings of silver and copper ores that are still visible today are monuments to the work of ancient miners - the medieval mines of Kani-Mansur near Adrasman, famous today for its bismuth, or Kansai for its mercury. Polymetals and copper accompany each other in the particularly rich ore region of Almalyk, Altyntopkan and Kuruksay.

Angren is a stoker containing about a quarter of the coal reserves of Central Asia. Mining here takes place both in the mine and from the surface. On the basis of the Akhangaran “Valley of Treasures” and the nearby mountains, the Chatkal-Kuraminsky territorial-production complex is being formed with favorable mutual placement and interaction of mining and processing enterprises.

For residents of Tashkent, the Western Tien Shan is a cool and green suburban area, a favorite vacation spot. The trip to Charvak and Chimgan is especially good. Above the mouth of the Ugam River, Chirchik is dammed by the largest dam in the entire cascade (one and a half hundred meters high) Charvak hydroelectric power station. Its power is 600 thousand kilowatts. Two cubic kilometers of water entered the mouth sections of the Chatkal and Pskem valleys, forming Chirchik, creating a water area of ​​about 40 square kilometers. A trip around the reservoir and panoramic views from the panoramic platform above the dam leaves wonderful memories.

Around the reservoir stretches the blessed corner of Western Chatkal - the Bostandyk area and the Chimgan valley, inviting skiers. The three-kilometer-high mountain barrier of the same name intercepts the lost moisture from the winds that cross the desert, and Bostandyk receives up to 1,000 millimeters of precipitation per year - three times more than in Tashkent. Here, as in the south of the Chatkal ridge, thickets of wild apple trees are rampant, and walnut groves, the northernmost in Central Asia, are adorned.

Resorts arose at the southern base of Chatkal. The most famous of them, the thermal hydrogen sulfide-radon Chartak, became an all-Union health resort.

Four large areas of nature in the Western Tien Shan are protected. More than 350 square kilometers are occupied by the Chatkal reserve, closest to Tashkent, over 180 - Besh-Aralsky in the Chatkal valley, about 240 - Sary-Chelek, near the junction of the Chatkal ridge with the Talas, and 730 square kilometers - Aksu-Dzhabaglinsky on the Ugam ridge and the tip of the Talas Alatau. All these are majestic mountainous territories with heights of up to 3-4 kilometers, in Aksu-Dzhabagly - with dozens of glaciers. The name of the Sary-Chelek Nature Reserve was given by one of the best decorations of Central Asian nature - Lake Sary-Chelek, located at a two-kilometer altitude.

Fergana Basin. The Tien Shan and Gissar-Alai mountains, firmly connected in the east by the Fergana ridge, and in the west closely adjacent to the neck of the Farhad Gate of the Syr Darya, widely part between these nodes, embracing a giant basin, to which for some reason the name “Fergana Valley” is attached, although there is nothing like a valley here. This tectonic oval of subsidence, amazing in size and regularity of outline, with a diameter of 325 kilometers along the parallel and up to 90 kilometers along the meridian, occupies an area of ​​more than 22 thousand square kilometers. For its riches, Fergana was considered the pearl of the Russian Empire in the past.

The fact that in ancient times the basin was the center of various civilizations is reminiscent of traces of ancient settlements and medieval monuments. Today it is one of the most prosperous territories of Central Asia, divided between three union republics - Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It provides the country with about a quarter of all cotton harvests and a third of silkworm cocoons.

This basin is a seismic trough inherited from ancient times and to this day, the folded foundation of which is buried for kilometers. Its bottom would have long ago been below ocean level (as it was when the gulf of the pre-Quaternary Sarmatian Sea penetrated here), if this subsidence had not been compensated for by the intensive supply of rubble and pebbles from the surrounding mountains. The modern bottom of the basin lies at altitudes of up to 1000 meters in the east and 300 in the west.

The ridges isolate the basin from wet winds. Its bottom receives only a meager desert dose of rain per year - 100-150 millimeters, and only the foothills receive a little more (up to 300). Therefore, the desert dominates on the flat bottom, and on the periphery there are mountain deserts of the foothills, which above turn into mountain semi-deserts. The mountains protect the depression from cold winds (the average January temperature does not drop below minus 3°) and share with it the moisture flowing down the slopes.

A ring of rich oases embraced Fergana. They are fed by both surface watercourses and a powerful plume of underground runoff under foothill sediments. The transit Syr Darya flows along the northern border of the Fergana ellipse, formed by the confluence of the Kara Darya and Naryn. Their waters feed large main canals - the Bolshoi, Northern and Southern Fergana - the first-born of nationwide construction projects during the pre-war five-year plans and many of the newest canals. The waterless planes are decorated with the Uchkurgan, Kairakkum, and Farkhad reservoirs, but the latter has become heavily silted.

In addition to the round dance of cities and roads connecting this ring of oases, Fergana is also surrounded by a network of gas pipelines and a unified control system for all the canals that supply it. Transverse rivers also participate in irrigation, and therefore they even dry up in dry deltas. They, too, seem to have joined hands in a round dance - their lower reaches are connected by canals that make it possible to regulate water supply and transfer water to neighbors who need it.

Some of the pebble-crushed stone outfalls were involved in the arched uplifts of neighboring ridges. This is how whimsically cut ravines arose ( saiami) bad lands: conglomerate and loess adyrs, embracing almost the entire Fergana. In places and even in the axial part of the depression, these young sediments have experienced recent collapse and rise in amazing youth-folded ridges of impressive size. Some of them have domes made of rock salt pressed upward.

The cultural landscape dominates - endless fields of cotton, cut by fans of irrigation ditches, green areas of gardens, melons and vineyards, alleys of poplars and mulberries, white acacia, plane trees and elms. Grew up in oases big cities: Leninabad, Andijan, Fergana, Kokand, Osh, Namangan, Margilan. Resorts are becoming increasingly famous; the most promising of them is the hydrogen sulfide Chimion, “Fergana Matsesta”.

Hissar-Alay. In the accumulation of the highest ridges between the Tien Shan and the Pamirs, a kind of buffer zone stands out with the Alai Range in the east and the fan of Gissar ranges in the west. For a long time there was no consensus as to what this strip of mountains should be classified as: some considered it to be part of the Pamirs and spoke of it as something single, the Pamir-Alai; others believed that the extreme southwestern protrusion of the Tien Shan adjoins here, close to the Pamirs. But this strip of mountains is separated from the Tien Shan by the huge Fergana Basin, and from the Pamirs by the deep trench of the Alai Valley. And the structure of the subsoil is different from that inherent in both neighboring highlands. That is why it has become generally accepted to distinguish an independent mountain system under the name Gissaro-Alai, contrasted with both the Tien Shan and the Pamirs.

The close proximity of the icy heights of the northern and dry subtropics of southern Tajikistan... The brightest colors of rivers and lakes, flowering gardens and meadows, even the rocks themselves, shimmering with all the colors of the stone rainbow - the rocks composing them are so colorful... Giant dams and reservoirs... All this is the Gissaro-Alay, an asymmetrical ridge with a drier and gentler northern slope and a more moist steep southern slope (the north receives up to 450, the south - 600-1200 millimeters of precipitation per year). On the inner slopes of the mountains and in the valleys, dryness, rockiness, and an abundance of almost bare rocks sharply increase - here only 150 millimeters of precipitation falls per year.

The length of the shaft is about 750 kilometers, and the width varies in different sections. In the east there is one Alai ridge, only 70-90 kilometers across. In the middle part, Kuhistan - the “country of mountains” - expands more than twice, but is divided into three parallel ridges: Turkestan, Zeravshan and Gissar. The western branches of Hissar fan out over 350 kilometers. The inconspicuous Malguzar-Nuratau chain extends to the northwest, obliquely in relation to the latitudinal ridges. From the south, Gissar is adjacent to a grid of ridges of Southern Tajikistan with densely populated valleys.

The largest ridges have a high-alpine appearance and powerful glaciers. In the Matcha node, up to 5621 meters high, where Alai bifurcates into the Turkestan and Zeravshan ridges, the tree-like Zeravshan glacier has a length of almost 25 kilometers.

The northern slope of the Gissar-Alai faces the Fergana Basin. South of the city of Fergana, the mountain climatic resort of Hamzaabad in the Shakhimardan valley, near beautiful lakes, is popular. The most inhabited part inside Gissaro-Alai is the Zeravshan valley, heavily terraced, as if lined into five tiers of platforms and edges. Its extensions form the Penjikent basin, and in the lower reaches the Samarkand oasis. The tugai of the Zeravshan floodplain and its dry delta are protected in the Zeravshan and Karakul reserves. Archaeologists have excavated the ancient settlement of Penjikent from the times of ancient Sogdiana. The monuments of the Middle Ages are also interesting.

In 1964, this valley was not spared by a catastrophic landslide that dammed the river near the village of Aini. The dam's breakthrough threatened disaster for the entire underlying valley. The explosion cut a route for water drainage - it was drained by a 60-meter waterfall.

The Zeravshan ridge with heights of up to 5489 meters (Mount Chimtarga) would be more accurately called a chain - it is completely cut through by the gorges of the left tributaries of the Zeravshan, the longitudinal upper reaches of which and the Kashkadarya going to the west separate it from the more southern Gissar. There are many first-class natural phenomena here: a chain of magnificent Marguzor lakes, strung like beads on a thread of the Shing River, the bubbling rapids of Yagnob, breaking through cyclopean stone rubble; Iskander Darya, flowing with a 30-meter waterfall from the landslide-dammed Lake Iskanderkul, also one of the most beautiful in Central Asia.

The subsoil is ore-bearing here too. A belt of antimony-mercury deposits stretches along the northern slope. There are tungsten ores and fluorite reserves.

In the coking coals near Yagnob, an underground fire that arose as a result of spontaneous combustion lasts for centuries - it was known about already in the 10th century. Along the Fergana foothills there are two garlands of deposits - coal and oil.

Nature is protected in five reserves: mountain-juniper Kyzylsu, Mirakin, Ramit, Zaamin and mountain-nut Nurata. The first two are located in the Kashkadarya River basin, the third - in the upper reaches of Kafirnigan, the fourth - in the area where the Malguzar ridge adjoins the Turkestan, and the fifth - on the slopes of the extreme northwestern branch of the Gissar-Alai - the Nuratau ridge. The horned goat, listed in the Red Book, is protected in the Kugitangtau mountains and Southern Tajikistan. A natural national park has been organized on the northern slope of the Turkestan ridge.

The Trans-Gissar highway Leninabad - Dushanbe crosses all three ridges (two through passes, Zeravshansky - along the through Fandarya gorge) and allows you to get acquainted with Gissar-Alay as if in cross-section. In addition to the “usual” beauty of the alpine heights, the route captivates with the variegated colors of the rocks - intensely red, pink, lilac, green, yellow. Here, as on the poster, you can see the differences between the altitude zones and the contrasts of opposite slopes. A 5-kilometer tunnel is being built to bypass the Anzob Pass.

When descending from Gissar to the south, we find ourselves from a world of bare stones under a green tree canopy. The place of northern juniper woodlands was taken by lush broad-leaved copses of maple, plane tree, walnut and many wild fruit trees in mountain forest gardens. In the belt of maximum precipitation (900-1200 millimeters per year), non-irrigated farming is possible; this is a “zone of secured rainfed" Work on terraced forest plantations began on tens of thousands of hectares.

The Varzob flowing through Dushanbe (below it is called Dushanbinka) feeds both the city water pipes and the Great Gissar Canal, laid to the west along the foothills of the mountains all the way to the Surkhandarya basin. Along the eastern foothills of Gissar lies the valley of the right source of the Vakhsh, the Surkhob River, along a tectonic seam. Along the northwestern Pamir tract (not to be confused with the main Trans-Pamir!) it is easiest to get to the highest Alai ridges, the Alai Valley and the seven-thousanders of the Pamirs. In the lake-like extensions of the Surkhoba valley, the villages of Garm, Novabad and Khait, which have repeatedly suffered from devastating earthquakes, are surrounded by gardens.

The chain of the Malguzar-Nuratau ridges is dissected by the gorge of the Sanzar River, the narrow part of which is called the Tamerlane or Iron Gates - in the past, the approaches to Timur’s capital Samarkand were blocked in this defile by gates with an iron chain. Now there are highways and Railway from Tashkent to Samarkand. Sanzar would have dried up if in the last century it had not been watered by a canal diverted from Zeravshan through the tip of the Turkestan ridge. Sanzar has muddy water even in autumn - after all, it is Zeravshan water, fed by glaciers.

The southwestern branch of Gissar - the Baysuntau - Kugitangtau chain ends at Turkmenistan and approaches the Amu Darya. The famous mountain pass Iron Gates (another one!), this time customs, opens the way from Karshi and Samarkand to Termez, it is called the Great Uzbek Highway. Baysuntau and its spurs also amaze with the fantastic colors of the rocks. The Gaurdag sulfur deposits are important in the Kugitang Mountains. Enchanting caves with deposits of marble-like onyx of rare transparency are known. The reserves of the Karlyuk and Karabil deposits of potassium salts amount to billions of tons.

To the east are piled up deeply indented gorges South Tajik mountains, composed, like part of Gissar, by Meso-Cenozoic variegated strata. The eastern ridges of the middle mountains rise in the form of steps leading to the Pamirs, already clearly higher than the “average” ones (up to 3-4 kilometers). The western ones rarely exceed 2 kilometers, but they look like low mountains, because the basins separating them themselves lie at levels of about a thousand meters. Among the mountains there are massifs made of pure rock salt - such is the snow-white, although snowless, Mount Khoja-Mumin.

The pride of Tajikistan is the gigantic Nurek hydroelectric power station, the “eighth wonder of the world,” with a capacity of 2.7 million kilowatts, which has harnessed the wild Vakhsh. Following it, on the same Vakhsh, there is an even more powerful Rogun hydroelectric power station, the most powerful in Central Asia. And in total, in the Vakhsh cascade, counting the three previously created stations in the lower reaches, nine hydroelectric power stations with a total capacity of up to 10 million kilowatts will operate.

Nurek owes its name to the Tajik word “norak” - light, light, ray. In the Pulisangin Gorge, a dam has been erected that has risen to 300 meters - this is the height of the Eiffel Tower! In the conditions of the greatest seismic activity it is a miracle of hydraulic engineering. In response to shaking, the dam should only compact, promising to withstand the pressure of 10.5 cubic kilometers of water held by it. The reservoir, which flooded the Vakhsh valley for 70 kilometers, rivals the Sarez Lake of the Pamirs in its blueness, outline and size. Here navigation to the site of the Rogun hydroelectric power station arose. An almost 14-kilometer tunnel transmits its water to the neighboring Dangara Valley. And below Nurekskaya, Vakhsh is blocked by another - the Baipazinskaya dam. It raised the river level by 50 meters; From here, water was sent through a seven-kilometer tunnel through the ridge into the Yavan and Obikiik valleys, which until recently were waterless. It is in these three valleys that the fine-fiber Egyptian cotton ripens.

The Vakhsh Valley, oddly enough, is not a synonym for the entire Vakhsh Valley above and below Nurek, but an independent proper name, applied only to the lower reaches of the river. It was this that made it famous when this area was the first object of irrigation in the dry subtropics of Tajikistan. Here, long before Nurek, a cascade of three waterworks was created. The head dam, 40 meters high, allowed to accumulate 10 cubic kilometers of water and flood the valley for 15 kilometers.

Unfortunately, even the most useful landscape transformations have downsides. The silt that previously enriched the fields and filled the cracks in the bottom of the ditches settles in the reservoirs. Clarified water is depleted of nutrients - they can be replaced by fertilizers, although they are not cheap. But who will hold back increased filtration with losses from a quarter to half of the water volume? And here we need considerable funds to cover thousands of linear kilometers of irrigation and drainage networks.

Much has changed in the Tigrovaya Balka Nature Reserve. In the 1930s, more than 400 square kilometers of tugai thickets in the lowlands at the confluence of the Vakhsh and Pyanj were taken under protection. The nature here amazed with the virgin density of thickets of poplar-turanga and jida, thickets of tamarisk and wild sugar cane. Tigers were found in the reed jungles until 1959. The glory of the “balka” was the tugai Bukhara deer hangul - the “royal flower” of the Persian poets. There were wolves, jackals, hyenas, jungle cats - Hausas. The world of birds was rich: slow swans, Indian mynah starlings, pheasants, considered the most beautiful in the world. There are also huge monitor lizards and a lot of snakes. The reserve was literally teeming with life.

The huge withdrawal of Vakhsh waters for irrigation changed the entire regime of the reserved land and water: the channels began to become shallow and dry up, the reeds died, the animals began to scatter... Well, should we close the reserve and drain its lands in order to use them for cotton growing? No, it was considered useful to extend the protected status of this “laboratory in nature”, but not as an example of a pristine landscape, but as an object for studying the processes that arose as a result of its forced transformation.

The richest of the southern Tajik valleys is Gissar. It stretched out in a wide strip for more than a hundred kilometers. It is wetter here than in the lower foothill valleys (over 500 millimeters of rain per year), and there are also excessively heavy downpours, leading to mudflows and floods. The conditions of the dry subtropics are at their limit - at a kilometer altitude it can be cold. Nevertheless, flourishing oases arose in the valleys of Kafirnigan and Varzob - Ordzhonikidzeabad and Dushanbe, in which the young capital of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, grew up.

The Trans-Pamir Highway begins from the city of Osh, which lies at the eastern head of the Fergana Basin. It rises to the Alai ridge to the Taldyk pass with a height of 3650 meters, from where a very short descent leads to the Alai Valley, the bottom of which itself is raised above 3 kilometers. This trench is a seismic trough, but it did not descend: it rose along with its sides, only lagging behind them during the rise. This is how the valley arose, stretching for 190 kilometers with a width of 25-40.

The erosion of the red sandstones of the Trans-Alai ridge gave a red color to even the water of the main river of the valley. In Turkic-speaking Kyrgyzstan, the upper course of the river is called Kyzylsu, and below its confluence with Muksu, in Farso-speaking Tajikistan, it receives the name Surkhob; both names mean "red water".

The Alai Valley is often considered the threshold of the Pamirs - it already has many typical Pamir features in the landscape, average annual temperatures are close to tundra (+10°), there are almost no days without frost, and the western half is dominated by sparse mountain semi-deserts. But unlike the Pamirs, in the eastern part of the valley there are concentrated luxurious mountain-steppe and even meadow pastures with highly nutritious grass stands - large flocks of sheep and schools of horses feed here; even cattle are brought here from Fergana - in the summer over a million heads accumulate! On the more rocky foothills and on the ancient moraine hills at the Trans-Alai foothills you can see herds of yaks - a distinctly Pamir feature.

Like two snow-white ridges of clouds, stripes of supra-worldly peaks and ridges hover above the bottom and sides of the valley. On the Trans-Alai Range, many of them exceed 6 kilometers, and Lenin Peak even reaches 7134 meters - this is the third highest peak in our country. A picture of rare greatness, but with such absolute marks one could expect more. This is roughly what the lower alpine ridges of the Caucasus look like when you look at them from the plains of Ciscaucasia. After all, here the base is raised up to 3 kilometers, so the excess of the ridges above the bottom of the valley turns out to be relatively moderate.

In Persian “pa-mi-ihr” means “foot of the Sun god” - isn’t this where the name Pamir came from? And with it another elevating definition has grown together - “the roof of the world.” Truly a roof raised above the world to levels from 4 to 7 kilometers. The inhabitants of the Pamirs joke that they are 4 kilometers closer to the sky than the rest of the inhabitants of the Earth. Only people living in the high parts of the Tibetan and Bolivian plateaus can argue with them.

The Pamirs are crowned by the highest peak of the country - Communism Peak (7495 meters, since 1998 renamed Ismail Somoni Peak. - Note edit.). And how many more unique and greatest things are there! The deepest gorges and the longest glaciers. The proximity of huge accumulations of ice and mountain-desert waterlessness. An incredible area of ​​permafrost at such low latitudes (37-39°). Here, as nowhere else, the size of geological disasters occurring before human eyes is colossal, but here, higher than anywhere else in our country, they penetrate settlements and finds the upper limit of high mountain agriculture...

What are the boundaries of the Pamirs? In the broad sense of the word, this highland extends beyond the borders of our country. In the west, the mountains of Badakhshan continue on the left bank of the Pyanj. In the south, the Eastern Hindu Kush can also easily be considered another latitudinal ridge of the Pamirs. To the east of our border, the relief and landscape of the Pamir type are characteristic of the Kashgar Mountains, that is, the tip of Kunlun. The highest peaks of the “Kashgar Pamir”, and therefore the entire highland, are the foreign giants Kongur (7719 meters) and Mustagata (7546 meters). But let us agree to apply the concept of Pamir only to Soviet territory.

The structure of the subsoil here is complex and mosaic, like few places in our mountains. Treasures of enormous thickness, measured in tens of kilometers, have been crushed and crushed. Folds and faults of Alpine age captured both Cenozoic and Mesozoic sedimentary formations, and more ancient and rigid structures were crushed and tilted. The highlands warped and crumpled even in the process of the latest arch uplift, which was of colossal scope here. The strata that were deposited at the foothills geologically recently, in the Paleogene, are now located at altitudes of up to 5 kilometers in the Trans-Alai and Peter the Great ridges.

There are ridges-monuments to previously existing mountains. The cliffs of Darvaz seem to be stuffed with stones. These are fragments of the mountains that arose here in the early stages of the rise of the Pamirs, but were destroyed. Crushed stone and pebbles, cemented into conglomerates, reminiscent of this, are raised upward; they are called Darvaz. Geologists appreciate their gold content, and tourists admire the diversity of the cliffs - both the pebbles and the cement that holds them together are colorful.

The introduction of granite magma and the eruptions of ancient volcanoes contributed to a variety of mineralization - there are ores of molybdenum and tungsten, many rare metals, deposits of rock crystal, mica, and gems.

On the border of the Eastern and Western Pamirs, the highest rise of the entire highland rises - the almost meridional ridge of the Academy of Sciences. It is focused on such peaks as Communism Peak and the fourth highest seven-thousander in the country - Evgenia Korzhenevskaya Peak (7105 meters). The longest (77 kilometers) glacier, named Fedchenko, also lies along this ridge. It is tree-like and receives more than 30 tributary glaciers. The ice in this numb river still flows, moving an average of 250 meters per year.

The Pamirs are a majestic center of modern glaciation. Over a thousand glaciers occupy an area of ​​8 thousand square kilometers. In the recent past, although the snow limit decreased by only 400 - 700 meters, the area of ​​glaciers was many times greater. The length of some of them exceeded 200 kilometers, and Scandinavian-type ice caps appeared in the east.

The glaciers of the Pamirs have to be studied closely. This has been done for many years, in particular, by the world's highest hydrometeorological observatory above the Fedchenko glacier, located at an altitude of 4169 meters.

We are accustomed to thinking that glaciers flow slowly. Pamir forced me to change this opinion. Some of them, as if pulsating, accumulate such excess matter and force that they periodically push their ice like a piston down the valley at a speed of tens and even hundreds of meters per day.

With a roar, the ice ram advances, bombarding the slopes with “suitcases” of ice blocks falling from its edges, and with its forward facade cutting off moraine hills, bushes, and buildings like a bulldozer knife. This is exactly how the enraged “ice bear” - the Medvezhiy glacier - behaved in the spring of 1963. His advance cut off the path to crystal development and left people homeless. An uncontrollable ice flow blocked the path to one of the sources of Vanch. If the ice dam had been broken by 14 million cubic meters of water, a terrible surge from the drained lake would have swept down the entire Vanch, bringing untold devastation. At the cost of intense efforts, the water was released and drained. The glacier “went crazy” and calmed down. But the pulse is a pulse, it has its own rhythm, and after 10 years the “bear” gained strength again, as glaciologists predicted. Much happened again; 16 million cubic meters of water had already accumulated in the lake. Only after new progress in 1978 was the lake finally drained.

The border between the Eastern and Western Pamirs is considered to be the “break of the valleys” line, to which the deep incision of the thalwegs managed to spread to the east. To the west of this winding line, the valleys sharply narrow, turn into gorges, and their gentle beds become steep - this is the Western Pamir. On its ridges, only in some places undestroyed sections of plateaus with landscapes of the Eastern Pamir type have survived; but the upper reaches of individual western gorges made their way through deep incisions far to the east.

The Eastern Pamirs are a world of extremes, more reminiscent of the high deserts of Central Asia. Desert moraine and gravel plains at altitudes of 4-5 kilometers; ridges with 6-kilometer peak marks, but in appearance they are only medium-altitude and even low-altitude - they rise only a kilometer and a half above the soles. Some plateaus are so vast that the mountains from them are visible only in a bluish haze on the horizon. “The Pamirs are the flat palm of the earth on which the sky lies,” Yuri Sbitnev managed to generalize!

A lot of things helped here to preserve the ancient leveled surfaces: widely spaced arches of folds; distance from cutting gorges; the softening role of ancient glaciers - they slid from the ridges to the foothills and merged into single piedmont masses, as is now the case in Alaska. The valleys are filled with moraine rubble, sometimes as if compactly rolled, and are depressing with the barren crusts of salt marshes and takyrs.

The air is thin, the pressure is sharply reduced, the snow line runs at altitudes of 4.5-5.5 kilometers. Frosts down to minus 50°, despite the brightness of the high southern sun. On the saline soils there is a permafrost microrelief: typical tundra stone polygons, and on these stones there is a completely southern desert tan - after all, here we have the highest rates of solar radiation.

Wet winds penetrate here through the ridges only in a downward flow and produce almost no precipitation - only 75 - 100 millimeters fall per year.

Among the deserts there are blue lakes: drainless - Shorkul, Karakul and flowing - Rangkul. The most remarkable of them is Karakul - a “black lake”, stretching in a tectonic depression at an altitude of more than 3900 meters - 100 meters above the famous Titicaca in the Andes, with a mirror 20-30 kilometers across. Its bitter-salty water freezes for more than six months. The depths reach almost a quarter of a kilometer, and an ancient glacier also participated in the final appearance of the depression, covering it with a continuous massif. Thick layers of unmelting ice are visible at the underwater foot of the coastal cliffs.

Konstantin Simonov discovered Karakul not black, but deep blue and white - these were the colors of water and ice: “And around the blue-white lake there are camel-colored red mountains with prickly peaks cut into the light blue sky. This landscape is reminiscent of Roerich’s paintings, as, indeed, very much in the Pamirs in general resembles them.”

In calm weather, this is a reservoir with azure-clear water. But more often, dashing dusty winds blow here. During a stormy north, the lake turns gray and even black from boiling ripples and swells. Is this where his “black” name comes from?

To the north of the lake, the snowy and icy Trans-Alai Range stretches for 290 kilometers, crowned by Lenin Peak and crossed by the Trans-Pamir Highway (it is simply called the Pamir Highway). It took a lot of effort to build the tract. They are also needed for everyday operation of the track in conditions of harsh climate and oxygen starvation - both people and engines feel it. Avalanches are terrible in winter. This year-round motorway is called a “difficulty route.” The length of the tract is 700 kilometers; it crosses the Pamir square not diagonally, but runs along the peripheral legs of its outskirts.

In the northern part, the road leads through two famous passes: Kyzylart (red pass) - through the Trans-Alai ridge at an altitude of 4280 meters and the ever-snowy Akbaital (white stallion) south of Karakul - 4641 meters. In the vicinity of Murghab, the desert is dotted with only rare, inconspicuous bushes of teresken, the only fuel in these places; it also serves as food for the yaks. Life processes are so slow that even tiny specimens of teresken can be several hundred years old. On rare patches of pastures, only nomadic cattle breeding is possible: feed is so scarce that not a single pasture, except for yak tereskens, will feed livestock throughout the entire season. And yet, tens of thousands of sheep and many thousands of meat-haired yaks graze here, which also provide excellent milk. Yaks are unpretentious, “frost-resistant”, and spend the whole year under open air and do not complain about low blood pressure or the stingy oxygen regimen.

Near Murghab, at the Chichekty experimental station, biologists and agronomists are developing early-ripening varieties of barley, rye, and vegetables. The Nayzatash pass, 4137 meters high, leads the route to the Alichur valley. Along the way, you can't stop admiring the intricate weathering patterns of creamy conglomerates and brick-red sandstones. This is one of the most beautiful sections of the route. Bristly and ridged ridges, domes, pyramids, a variegation of yellow, brown and purple colors combined with the whiteness of the snow...

If you leave the tract and turn along the path into the lower section of the Alichur valley, you come to another lake - Yashilkul (green), formed at an altitude of 3734 meters by a landslide that struck eight centuries ago. Even today it looks as if it had just been poured into a foreign valley 22 kilometers long among exposed fawn steeps. Deep bays are separated by curtained capes, and the whiteness of the 6-kilometer giant Pathor Peak shines above. The lake has always attracted anglers. In 1979, Siberian peled was released into it.

Alichur flows into Yashilkul, and the Pyanj tributary Gunt flows out of it. The tract descends into its valley, having overcome two more passes. Here the Eastern Pamir landscapes end and the Western Pamirs begin: immeasurable depths open up, shady gorges open up, green bushes and gnarled birches appear. Isn’t this the most mountainous country we have - the topography is not cut so deeply and steeply anywhere! And on the whole Earth, perhaps, only in two places: in the Peruvian Andes and in the eastern Himalayas you can see such a depth of dissection of the mountains - the ridges rise 4-5 kilometers above the valleys, which are cut here to a level of 2 kilometers above the sea. There are countless rocky cliffs; there are kilometer-high planes, almost vertical.

The deepest furrow was dug by Panj, which divided the steep slopes of Badakhshan into approximately equal parts - our Western Pamir and Afghan Badakhshan. The cracks of the Pyanj itself and its right tributaries cut the first of them into large parallel ridges. The Obihingou valley in the upper reaches of the Vakhsh separated the extreme northwestern bastion of the Pamirs, the ridge of Peter the Great, from the Darvaz ridge.

The Western Pamirs are wetter than the Eastern Pamirs. Powerful glaciation could develop here, but the ridges are so narrow and the slopes are steep that usually only small hanging glaciers fit on them. Frequent earthquakes shake off not only snow, but also rock landslides. The championship among landslide-dammed lakes in both size and beauty is, of course, held by Lake Sarez.

In 1911, about 2 cubic kilometers of stone, weighing 6 billion tons, collapsed into the Murghab valley due to a seismic shock! The village of Usoi was buried under the collapse, and this tragic event was included in geology under the name of the Usoi collapse. A lake began to accumulate in front of a dam hundreds of meters high. By the end of the year, it flooded the Sarez village located higher up the valley, and three years later it swallowed up the valley for 70 kilometers. The narrowness of the gorge prevented the lake from spreading more than one and a half kilometers in width, and depths in it reached up to five hundred meters. Filtration through the dam prevented the water from overflowing (there were still 50 meters left before overflowing), and finally, by 1921, its surface stabilized at 3239 meters.

Lake Sarez and the blockage that gave rise to it are rare monuments of geological disasters of this size that arose before human eyes. A meeting with Sarez excites everyone who was lucky enough to get to him along the path from Yashil-kul or by helicopter. Some visitors are intoxicated by its “celestial blue,” others by its “cobalt blue,” comparable in thickness to dark blue ink, and those who spend an evening on the lake even remember the anthracite blackness of the waters. The frame of the lake is formed by reddish-brown, and higher on the slopes, reddish rocks, like wrinkles, riddled with dry hollows.

The lake has accumulated up to 15 cubic kilometers of water. But is a natural rockfill dam strong enough? Its breakthrough in the event of being undermined by underground runoff or the lake overflowing with new collapses of rocks overhanging it can lead to disastrous consequences. In a few hours, down the Bartang valley, and even lower, along the Amu Darya all the way to Termez, an all-washing wave of flood will sweep through. Shouldn't the lake be drained at least 100 meters to reduce the danger?

Reclamation workers and power engineers look at Sarez with envy: it is both a supply of water for irrigation and a ready-made reservoir for a hydroelectric power station. They propose to pour the lake from its three-kilometer heights through a tunnel or bypass canal down the valley, where it will be warmer and where another, but obviously super-strong dam 300 meters high will allow the filling of a new, this time man-made Sarez, with a capacity equal to the natural one. It will be convenient to locate the water intake devices of the hydroelectric complex that feeds the irrigated lands, and powerful power plants will operate along the water drainage route.

The Pamir continues to rise and forces the rivers to tirelessly deepen their beds. There are extremely narrow or no floodplains here. Planes suitable for farming - dasht, arise only at the mouths of tributaries and on rare fragments of river terraces, which are “suspended” on steep slopes by balconies at a height of hundreds of meters above the channels.

And they bring soil to dashts in baskets!

From the villages, clinging to the slopes like swallows' nests, truly eagle horizons open up. Dizzying paths are laid along steep cliffs over abysses along narrow cornices and one-way balcony bridges - these are the famous ovrings. No less daring routes are drawn along the steep slopes with hanging irrigation canals, taking water high in the mountains and delivering it along the slopes to the mountain fields.

Mountain Tajiks cultivate naked barley, beans, peas, flax, and millet. With artificial irrigation, wheat and rye will be born, mulberries, apple trees, and apricots will bear fruit. The lower slopes are occupied by mountain semi-desert with thorny cushion-shaped bushes and rare “grass trees” - umbrella tall grass. The annual drive of sheep flocks to the overlying steppes and meadows sometimes requires acrobatic dexterity from both shepherds and animals.

The main source of the Pyanj - Vakhdzhir and its continuation Vakhandarya are located in Afghanistan. The Pamir River begins from Lake Zorkul, elevated to a height of 4125 meters. Having gurgled through a terrible gorge cut through the Vakhan ridge, it meets Vakhandarya, and together they form Pyanj proper. As far as Ishkashim, it flows southwest along the longitudinal valley separating the Wakhan Range from the foreign Hindu Kush, and from here it turns sharply to the north. The left bank here is the wild and formidable steeps of Afghan Badakhshan. On the right bank, where the mountains are equally huge, signs of development are clearly visible: electric lights powered by the power plant in Ishkashim, forest plantations, roads replacing former ovrings, irrigated fields...

The energy power of Pyanj is enormous. It is realistic to create giant hydroelectric power stations - Rushanskaya with a capacity of 3 million kilowatts and Dashtidzhumskaya - 4 million.

Descending along Panj to Khorog from the south, it would be a sin to miss one of famous places Pamir - Garm-Chashma. Let's turn into the canyon of one of the tributaries of the Pyanj and climb along it towards the white giant - Mayakovsky Peak. Among the bare rocks, the view opens to a staircase of petrified waterfalls - terraces of snow-white, yellowish or bluish calcareous tuff deposits with reservoirs filled with blue water. In places it bubbles and even gushes up to one and a half meters, forming microgeysers. On the springs with a temperature of 50 - 75° there is a hydropathic clinic, one of the highest in the world (at an altitude of about 3 kilometers). The luxurious cascades of sinter terraces are comparable to the world's treasures of natural architecture - the Mammoth terraces of Yellowstone Park in America and the New Zealand cascades of Tetarat - geysers were also the main architects of the masterpieces there.

Along one more gorge we will get to the anciently mined gems of the “ruby mountain” Kuhi-Lal (it was mentioned by Marco Polo, who also passed through here). In the old days, rubies were called frets, like yahonts, but crimson and amber-colored spinels are mined here, now with the help of modern mechanisms. And in the Pamirs there are also green-blue amazonites, honey-colored sphenes, blue and “tea” topazes, transparent scapolite, dark cherry rutile, jasper, mica, asbestos, talc... The extraction of many treasures is hampered by their sky-high inaccessibility. However, there is even a coal mine at an altitude of 5200 meters - this is higher than the peak of Kazbek. Coal here is given out not “to the mountain”, but from the mountain!

In the Shahdara valley, the deposits of the “heavenly stone” lajvar are famous - lapis lazuli, about which Marco Polo wrote that the best azure in the world is extracted from it. A pack path has been cut to the “blue gorge” of Lyajvar-dary at a 5-kilometer height, and the mined blocks of blue stone are transported by helicopters.

Poplar-adorned Khorog, the center of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region and the highest of such centers, is located at 2,200 meters. And a high-mountain botanical garden was created some 10 meters above Khorog. Here they breed plant varieties adapted to the harsh conditions of the highlands, help introduce fruit plantations and berry gardens into the economy, and cultivate forage herbs and vegetables.

The western part of the tract (Khorog - Dushanbe) is often called the Western Pamir. It is laid along the old caravan road, the movement along which took horsemen and packs up to 40 days. Now it is 550 kilometers of road route, the most difficult in profile (11 passes!) and replete with so many serpentines and dizzying cornices that drivers call it a slalom track. Khorog is connected to Dushanbe and by air, the flight takes only 45 minutes, but it is also associated with strong sensations. The plane, especially before descending in Khorog, follows the whimsical curves of the gorge, which narrows down to 50 meters in the “Rushan Window”, so the pilots call this path an aerial slalom route.

When Pyanj breaks through the Yazgulem ridge, at the site of the dam of the future Rushan hydroelectric power station, one is struck by the unusual combination of a huge, almost mirror-like surface, like that of lowland rivers, with a truly mountainous speed of flow. Traveler N.N. Sushkina called this part of Pyanj the Mountain Volga.

Towards the mouth of Yazgulem with dark brick water and further when crossing the gorge with the Vanch ridge, and below the mouth of Vanch the most spectacular part of the Panj gorges is located. The smooth planes of the plumbs rise hundreds of meters above the river, forming scenes, like scenery in 5-6 plans. The smooth surface of the river is interrupted by rapids cascades, deployed up to one and a half hundred meters along the front. Below the mouth of Vanch, the Pyanj, and with it the highway, rush to the northwest. But from the village of Kalai-Khumb, Pyanj goes southwest to the Dashtidzhum Gorge and Southern Tajikistan, while the tract climbs along the beautiful Rabotsky Gorge to the Darvaz pass at a height of 3270 meters. The path down the brick-red Obi-Hingou canyon coincides with the border between the Peter the Great ridge and the southern Tajik branches of the Gissar-Alai.

Mountains of Southern Turkmenistan. Great deserts are not entirely bordered by ridges. To the west of the branching Hissar-Alai, the mountains are interrupted by the Karakum, and further west the desert is again framed by mountains, only they no longer belong to Central Asia, but to Western Asia (the outlying ranges of the Iranian Plateau penetrate into the south of Turkmenistan). In the east you can see the edges of the North Afghan Paropamiz - the low mountains of Karabil and Badkhyz, to the west - the Kopetdag Mountains (the northern barrier of the Turkmen-Khorasan mountainous country) and the “island” blocks of the two Balkhans. In essence, this is already part of Eastern Middle-earth.

The Kopetdag towers over Ashgabat, stooping, much more unattractive than the northern Tien Shan Alatau over Alma-Ata and Frunze. Only when viewed from a distance, from the desert, does it seem to grow, standing up to its full 2-3-kilometer height. And yet, Ashgabat residents are proud of Kopetdag and love to relax in its shady gorges and green valleys. The closest and most popular of them is Firyuza with its gardens, park and the legendary multi-stemmed plane tree “Seven Brothers”.

Steep-sloping and flat-topped ridges stretch for more than 600 kilometers, occupying a width of up to 175 in the west and only 20-50 kilometers in the southeast. The border divides the mountains into Soviet and Iranian parts: their northwestern third belongs almost entirely to the Soviet Union, the remaining two thirds belong to Iran.

The northeastern base of the mountains is drawn as if along a ruler, separating them from the flat Karakum. This is a trace of a moving suture along which the Kopetdag was raised above its foothill trough and even pushed onto it. From the cracks that form a whole “thermal zone” here, warm springs gush out, including the cave lake Coe near Baharden and the healing waters of the Archman resort.

The Forward Chain, sawn into many links by gorges, is just as straight. It is separated from the other ridges by a vast trough - the Greater Kopetdag Valley. But the border ridges lying behind it follow the same trend only in the southeast. To the west of the Nokhur clustering node they bend, forming an independent arc, convex to the north. The huge neighboring mountain arcs of Elburz and Paropamiz are joined in it - on the map they look like garlands sagging to the south. Here the Kopetdag ridges diverge: the border ridges stretch to the southwest, towards Elburz, and the forward chain steadily follows to the northwest. The rivers of the Atrek basin flow in the longitudinal valleys between the branching ridges, the main one is Sumbar.

There are no Alpine-style jagged ridges here. Even the highest of them (2.5-3 kilometers) during periods of former glaciations barely reached the snow line. Each major ridge is accompanied by parallel, lower ridges. The frames of their ridges form the steps of huge staircases - witnesses to the succession of stages of leveling and uplifting. From the most ancient stage, even pre-Quaternary, the Siberian ridge plateau has been preserved - its name speaks of the severity of the climate. And the youngest steps, the foothills, are raised trails of foothills, intricately cut by a dense network of ravines - bairs, tiers of bad lands.

During the kilometer-long recent uplifts, the corrugation continued - the arches of the ridges grew faster, and the valleys lagged behind. There was also movement along the cracks. During the earthquake in May 1929, Mount Dushak rose so much that in the Sekizyaba gorge that cuts through it, a dammed lake remained for many years, which arose in front of the all-stone threshold.

On the night of October 5-6, 1948, the Kopetdag trembled even more. At the epicenter there were 10 points, but 8-9 was enough to destroy most of the buildings in Ashgabat. Even many years later, one cannot read without emotion about the days of disaster, the scale of destruction and casualties, about the enormous assistance provided to the population of the collapsed city.

It was folded into folds by the Meso-Cenozoic, which means that the Kopet Dag is a very young folded structure. Massive angular forms are hewn out of Cretaceous limestones and sandstones, while bad lands are carved out of Cretaceous and Paleogene marls and clays, as well as from younger loose rocks. The last pre-Quaternary advance of the Caspian Sea penetrated into the western valleys.

The sedimentary layers contain barite and witherite. But the main wealth of the subsoil is water. Before the construction of the Karakum Canal, their underground plume, penetrating under the sloping plain, was the only source of water for the foothill oases of Turkmenistan and its capital. Although irrigation ditches “carried the murmur from the mountains” through the streets, everyone knew that the main moisture here was extracted from underground, with the help of kariz - damp and gloomy galleries, fixed from the surface by chains of wells.

And yet, the strip of foothill oases has been inhabited since ancient times. In ancient times, here was the city of Nisa, the heart of the power that began to rise - Parthia; All that remains of it today is a pale-gray settlement uncovered by excavations with the most valuable traces of ancient (Parthian) and later (medieval) culture.

Now the landscape of the Kopetdag oases has changed dramatically. Of course, Ashgabat, as before, endures 40-degree heat and dust storms, but how much easier it is to endure them with an abundance of shady greenery and water! The karizs were replaced by boreholes. But the main drinker of the foothills is the already mentioned “Karakum Darya” canal.

The intramountain valleys of the west are more modestly supplied with water. This is unfortunate: after all, in the middle Sumbar, in the Karakala region, subtropical crops can be cultivated. Here in the surrounding valleys there is a world of lush forest gardens, the eastern avant-garde of the Hyrcanian (northern Iranian) mountain-forest landscapes, penetrating deep into the mountains like bright green tentacles. More than 40 species of wild fruit thrive in these valleys and form forests even more lush than in the south of the Gissar-Alai and Tien Shan - here the Hyrcanian center of distribution of pre-Quaternary relicts is closer. The groves of walnuts, figs, pomegranates, wild apple trees, pears, plums, medlars are magnificent - all of this is entwined with wild grapes (and perhaps wild ones since Parthian times).

The main miracle of the Sumbar Valley is not a tree, but a completely inconspicuous herb from the nightshade family, discovered in 1938 by the botanist O. F. Mizgireva, which turned out to be a new species of mandrake, unknown in the world flora - a mysterious plant of doctors of Tibet and Middle-earth. Tonic, vitamin-rich, medicinal, similar to ginseng (even the root of both resembles a human figurine), this plant turned out to be a relative of tomato, potato, henbane, nightshade - it resembles them in the shape of the stem and leaves, and tomato and fruit, but combines the aroma and taste of tomato, melon and pineapple. Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to introduce this miracle into culture.

To protect the relict forests of Sumbar, thinned by logging and grazing, the Syunt-Khosardag Nature Reserve was created.

An incredible landscape of naked mountain desert opens up on the road from Kizyl-Arvat to Karakala. The layers visible in the oblique cuts of the folds are colored so brightly and variegatedly that, if depicted in painting, they would resemble abstract paintings. The relief forms also look fantastic: a dense network of dry ravines, filled with water only during episodic - once every few years - downpours, cut the surface into small ridges, pyramids, cones, tightly pressed one against the other and as if cut with a comb. There are snow-white ridges, there are green, bluish, red, gray... A dead desert of clown-colored obelisks and domes, stretching for many kilometers.

In the upper parts of the slopes of the border ridges, among the mountain steppes, juniper forests are found, and in the east, pistachio woodlands; In some places the landscape can be called mountain forest-steppe. There are vast expanses of prickly, hedgehog-like cushions and tracts of large grasses with umbrella grasses taller than human height. Astragalus cushions and ferula “herbal trees” are valuable as sources of resins - gums, important medicinal and technical raw materials.

To protect mountain semi-deserts, steppes and areas of juniper woodlands in the Central Kopetdag, the Kopetdag Nature Reserve was created.

The fauna of the Kopetdag is varied and exotic - it has many species common to the neighboring mountains of Central Asia, Transcaucasia, the Iranian Plateau and even India. In the gorges of Sumbar in the first half of this century, the Turanian tiger was encountered (its last visit to us from Iran was noted in 1970).

Eastern links of the mountain strip of Southern Turkmenistan - Badkhyz and Karabil- massifs of hilly and ridged bad lands, and partly low mountains with heights of up to a kilometer. Badkhyz is separated from Kopetdag by the through gorge of the Tedzhen River, which in this section of its course, bordering Iran, is called by the name of its Afghan headwaters - Harirud. And Badkhyz and Karabil are separated from each other by another through valley - it was cut through by the Murgab River, Tejen’s neighbor. The semi-desert alternates with open forests - the “pistachio savanna”.

The pistachio, which Badkhyz is especially proud of, is not just a nut-bearing tree that produces tasty nuts, but also a source of technical raw materials. Oil, resin for making varnishes and paints, tanning agents, and medicines are obtained from the nuts. She is a champion of drought resistance: her widely spread roots help her survive in the mountain desert, which is why trees cannot grow close to each other.

The Badkhyz Nature Reserve protects honorary members of the Red Book - the gazelle and the main pride of these places - the kulan, a wild relative of the horse and donkey, large-headed and fleet-footed. It once lived in the steppes of Ukraine and Kazakhstan, but now it is preserved in its wild form only here.

Transcaspian plains and ridges— western links of the uplifts of Southern Turkmenistan. Both Balkhan and the Krasnovodsk plateau, although they lie on the direct northwestern extension of the Kopetdag, differ from it primarily in the greater antiquity of their subsoil. Here, fragments of the Karakum plate, the folded base of which was crushed back in the Mesozoic, are pushed up in the form of blocks. And the adjacent plains are very young troughs, only recently freed from under the waters of the Caspian Sea.

Small and Big Balkhans are separated by the lower reaches of the dry riverbed of the Uzboy. The low-mountainous Small Balkhan does not reach even 800 meters, and the Big Balkhan rises to almost 2 kilometers. The slopes of both are densely cut, like bad soil, by ravines and pitted by karst-type sinkholes. But the karst here is not in limestones or gypsum. Subsidence in dry climates is also characteristic of marly-clayey soils; this is a special karst - clayey. Both blocks were raised by recent movements simultaneously with the Kopetdag, so their relief differs little from its ridges, the depths of which were crushed much later. And there is a lot of Kopetdag in the appearance of the landscape here.

Adjacent to the foothills of the Big Balkhan is an area of ​​generous oil content. Among the dry lake Babakhodzha, the salts of which are still being mined, surrounded by the flat salt marsh Kelkor, where the Uzboy River that flowed here once ended, a modest hill rises. The first oil field was discovered here back in 1931. Oil Mountain, Neftedag, became the core of the oil-industrial region. Near Balkhan itself, on the path of dashing intermountain drafts, a well-greened city of Nebit-Dag, surprising for a recently wild desert, grew up. Of course, he did not have enough water, but now a water pipeline from the Karakum Canal has already been laid here. And yet, with all the greenery, the city feels as if in hell: the sun, the hot winds, and the slopes of the black mountain, Big Balkhan, breathing heat like from an oven, are to blame here.

Framed by poplars and reeds, the salt lake Mollacar lurks nearby. A. The resort uses its healing mud. And the Boyadag hill surprised us with a geyser sporadically gushing from a well. Along Balkhansky blinders The Ashgabat-Krasnovodsk railway goes to the sea.

The Balkhano-Kopet Dag swell plunges towards the Caspian Sea, continuing further in an underwater threshold, the transition to which on the shore is marked by a protrusion of land. The edges of the plateau on this Krasnovodsk Peninsula are dissected into steep festoons. The main seaport of Turkmenistan, the city of Krasnovodsk, arose on a rocky terrace between the cliffs and the sea. Its predecessor, the village of Uzun-Ada, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1895, after which the port was moved to its current location.

The city needs water. He took part of it from Nebit-Dag, received part of it from water carriers, and desalinated part of it from the Caspian Sea. But the Karakum Canal is already supplying a stream of water here too.

To the south of the Krasnovodsk Bay there is an amphibious landscape - from here the sea left only in the 30s. The Cheleken Peninsula arose from former island: the drying out of the Caspian Sea contributed to its attachment to land. Cheleken is oil-bearing; for a long time it produced mountain wax - ozokerite, rock salt, and mineral ocher. Mineral springs gush here and mud volcanoes bubble. Associated waters flowing with oil provide iodine and bromine. And oil is also extracted at sea, on the Turkmen “Oil Rocks” - this is how offshore oil production installations are called here, following the example of the well-known ones in Baku.

The pile buildings that saved the water from wind surges look funny. Now the sea has gone, but the piled buildings remain, as if standing on tiptoe just in case.

Once upon a time, the plain was irrigated by canals from the high-water Atrek. The majestic ruins of Messerian, one of the cities of medieval Dakhistan, which existed for one and a half millennia, have survived to this day. Now the Atrek is drying up at its mouth, so it was necessary to dig a 26-kilometer canal to the retreated sea in order to return the river spawning grounds for Caspian fish.

The lower reaches of the Atrek are a unique region of our dry subtropics. Only here the date palm bears fruit! The experimental station in Kizyl-Atrek cultivates dozens of dry subtropical plants - olives, figs, almonds, pomegranate, and even tropical ones - cacti, ornamental palms. Vegetables grow all year round in open ground. The subtropics will bloom with the arrival of water from the Karakum Darya; it will also transform the entire Messerian plain.

The tugai forests of the lower reaches and delta of the Atrek are dense and impassable - there are walls of cattails and reeds, thickets of tamarisk, entwined with vines of clematis and pavoya. Wild boars live in these jungles, and back in the 1930s tigers came here to feast on them. In the Atrek tugai, on the former bottom of the shrunken Gasankuli Bay and along the Caspian coast, there are protected lands and waters - “winter apartments” for hordes of birds. Both the land and coastal waters of the Caspian Sea are protected. The Gasankuli reserve, when its own bay dried out, was expanded towards the Cheleken and Krasnovodsk bays and made part of the larger Krasnovodsk reserve, which exceeded 2.5 thousand square kilometers. More than 160 species of waterfowl, wading and other birds winter here, including swan, flamingo, gray goose. The red-breasted goose, white-fronted goose, tundra herring gull and falcon arrive from the far north.

Winter concentrations of birds near Gasankuli are a force of nature! Their density and abundance make one remember bird colonies. Flocks of flamingos are compared to pink clouds, pink foam...

We would like to thank the authors for the photographs used in the design of this page:

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The highest mountain peaks in the world by mountain systems. Table.

Note: Dear visitors, hyphens in long words in the table are placed for the convenience of mobile users - otherwise the words will not wrap and the table will not fit on the screen. Thanks for understanding!

Mountain peak	Mountain system	Mainland	Height
Jomo-lungma (Everest)	Himalayas	Eurasia	8848 m
Peak of Communism	Pamir	Eurasia	7495 m
Pobeda Peak	Tien Shan	Eurasia	7439 m
Aconcagua	Andes	South America	6962 m
McKinley	Cordilleras	North America	6168 m
Kilimand-jaro	Kilimand-jaro massif	Africa	5891.8 m
Elbrus	B. Caucasus	Eurasia	5642 m
B. Ararat	Armenian Highlands	Eurasia	5165 m
Vinson Massif	Ellsworth	Antarctica	4892 m
Kazbek	B. Caucasus	Eurasia	5033.8 m
Mont Blanc	Western Alps	Eurasia	4810 m
Belukha	Altai	Eurasia	4509 m

However, if we take as a basis the height not above sea level, but from the base of the mountain, then the recognized leader among the highest mountains in the world becomes Mount Mauna Kea is a shield volcano located in the Hawaiian Islands.

The height of Mauna Kea from base to peak is 10,203 meters, which is 1,355 meters higher than Chomolungma. Most of the mountain is hidden under water, and Mauna Kea rises 4,205 meters above sea level.

The Mauna Kea volcano is about a million years old. The volcano's peak activity occurred during the shield stage around 500,000 years ago. Currently, the volcano is considered inactive - according to scientists, the last eruption was 4-6 thousand years ago.

The highest mountains in the world by continent. Descriptions of the seven highest peaks of the world by part of the world.

“Seven Summits” is a mountaineering project that includes the highest peaks of the world in parts of the world. North and South America, as well as Europe and Asia are considered separately. Climbers who conquer all seven peaks become members of the “7 Peaks Club”

List of "seven peaks":

• Chomolungma (Everest) (Asia)
• Aconcagua (South America)
• McKinley (North America)
• Kilimanjaro (Africa)
• Elbrus or Mont Blanc (Europe)
• Vinson Massif (Antarctica)
• Kosciuszko (Australia) or Carstens Pyramid (Puncak Jaya) (Australia and Oceania)

The seven highest mountain peaks by part of the world. Map.

Chomolungma (Everest) – the first of the “seven peaks”, the highest mountain in Asia and the highest peak in the world.

Chomolungma belongs to the Himalaya mountain system, the Mahalangur Himal range. The southern peak (8760 m) lies on the border of Nepal and the Tibet Autonomous Region (China), the Northern (main) peak (8848 m) is located in China.

Geographic coordinates of Mount Chomolungma - 27°59′17″ N. w. 86°55′31″ E d.

The fact that Qomolungma (Everest) is the highest mountain in the world was determined by the Indian mathematician and topographer Radhanath Sikdar in 1852 on the basis of trigonometric calculations, when he was in India 240 km from Qomolungma.

The highest mountain in the world and Asia has the shape of a triangular pyramid. The southern slope is steeper; snow and firn are not retained on it, so it is bare. Many glaciers descend from the top of the mountain range, ending at an altitude of 5000 meters.

The first ascent of the world's largest mountain was made on May 29, 1953 by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander Edmund Hillary through the South Col.

The climate of the highest peak of the world, Chomolungma, is extremely harsh. The wind speed there reaches 55 m/sec, and the air temperature drops to −60 °C. As a result, climbing the highest mountain in the world is fraught with many difficulties. Despite the modern equipment and equipment used by climbers, for every twentieth of them, conquering the highest peak of the world turns out to be the last thing in life. From 1953 to 2014, about 200 climbers died on the slopes of Everest.

Aconcagua- the second of the “seven peaks”, the highest mountain in South America and the highest peak in the western and southern hemispheres of the Earth.

Mount Aconcagua is located in the central Andes region of Argentina. Absolute height - 6962 m. Highest peak South America formed during the collision of the Nazca and South American lithospheric plates. The mountain has many glaciers, the largest of which are the northeastern (Polish glacier) and eastern.

Geographic coordinates of Mount Aconcagua 32°39′ S. w. 70°00′ W d.

Climbing the highest peak in the western and southern hemispheres of the Earth is technically considered easy if done using northern slope. From the south or southwest it is much more difficult to conquer the top of Aconcagua. The first ascent of the highest mountain in South America was recorded in 1897 by the expedition of Englishman Edward Fitzgerald.

McKinley– the third of the “seven peaks”, the highest mountain in North America. Height – 6168 meters.

The geographic coordinates of Mount McKinley are 63°04′10″ N. w. 151°00′26″ W. d.

Mount McKinley is located in Alaska, in the center national park Denali. Until 1867, it was considered the highest peak of the Russian Empire, until Alaska was sold to the United States. The first explorer of Mount McKinley is considered to be the Russian leader of the expedition, Lavrenty Alekseevich Zagoskin, who first saw it from both sides.

The highest mountain North America It was first conquered by American climbers under the command of Reverend Hudson Stack, who reached the top of the mountain on March 17, 1913.

Mount McKinley used to be called something else. The Athabascan Indians - the indigenous people - called it Denali, which means "great." While Alaska belonged to the Russian Empire, the mountain was simply called “Big Mountain.” In 1896, the tallest mountain in North America received its modern name in honor of the 25th American president.

Kilimanjaro– the fourth of the “seven peaks”, the highest mountain in Africa. Height - 5,891.8 m.

The geographic coordinates of Mount Kilimanjaro are 3°04′00″ S. w. 37°21′33″ E. d.

Kilimanjaro is a potentially active stratovolcano in northeastern Tanzania. Africa's highest peak consists of three main peaks, which are also extinct volcanoes: Shira in the west with 3,962 m above sea level, Kibo with 5,891.8 meters in height in the center and Mawenzi with 5,149 meters in height in the east.

The top of the Kibo volcano is covered with an ice cap. Once this cap was clearly visible from afar, but currently the glacier is actively melting. Over the past 100 years, the glacier covering the top of Africa's tallest mountain has shrunk by more than 80%. The melting of the glacier is associated with a decrease in precipitation associated with deforestation in the area adjacent to the mountain. According to some scientists, the Kilimanjaro ice cap will disappear by 2020.

The first ascent of Africa's highest peak was made in 1889 by Hans Meyer. The climb to Kilimanjaro is not considered difficult from a technical point of view, although it is incredibly spectacular. Due to its proximity to the equator, the mountain presents all types of altitudinal zones, which the climber sequentially passes one after another. Thus, during the ascent you can see all the main climate zones of the Earth in a few hours.

Elbrus- the fifth of the “seven peaks”, the highest mountain in Europe and the highest peak in Russia.

Geographic coordinates of Mount Elbrus - 43°20′45″ N. w. 42°26′55″ E. d.

The border between Asia and Europe is ambiguous, as a result of which there is debate whether Elbrus belongs to Europe. If yes, then this mountain is the highest point in Europe. If not, then the palm goes to Mont Blanc, which is discussed below.

Elbrus is located in the Greater Caucasus, on the border of the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia. It is the highest mountain in Russia. The highest peak in Europe is a double-peaked saddle-shaped volcanic cone. The western peak has a height of 5642 m, the eastern one - 5621 m. Last eruption was in the 50s AD.

The largest mountain in Europe is covered with glaciers with a total area of ​​134.5 km²; the most famous of them: Big and Small Azau, Terskol.

The first documented ascent of Mount Elbrus dates back to 1829 and was made during an expedition led by General G. A. Emmanuel, head of the Caucasian fortified line. Climbing Mount Elrus according to the mountaineering classification is not technically difficult. Although there are routes of increased difficulty.

Vinson Massif– the sixth of the “seven peaks”, the highest mountain in Antarctica. Height – 4897 meters.

The geographic coordinates of Vinson Massif are 78°31′31″ S. w. 85°37′01″ W d.

The Vinson Massif is located 1,200 km from the South Pole and is part of the Ellsworth Mountains. The massif extends 21 km in length and 13 km in width. The highest peak of the Vinson massif is Vinson Peak.

The highest mountain in Antarctica was discovered by American pilots in 1957. The first ascent of the highest peak of the southern continent was made on December 18, 1966 by Nicholas Clinch.

Mont Blanc- the highest mountain in Europe, the fifth of the “seven peaks”, if Elbrus belongs to Asia. Height – 4810 meters.

The geographic coordinates of Mont Blanc are 45°49′58″ N. w. 6°51′53″ E. d.

The highest peak in Europe is located in the Alps mountain system on the border of France and Italy. Mont Blanc is part of the Mont Blanc crystalline massif, which is about 50 km long. The ice cover of the massif covers an area of ​​200 km², the largest glacier is the Mer de Glace.

The first ascent of the highest point in Europe, Mont Blanc, was made by Jacques Balmat and Dr. Michel Paccard on August 8, 1786. In 1886, during his honeymoon, the highest mountain in Europe was conquered by the future President of the United States of America, Theodore Roosevelt.

Kosciuszko– the seventh of the “seven peaks”, the highest mountain in mainland Australia. Height – 2228 meters.

The geographical coordinates of Mount Kosciuszko are 36°27′ S. w. 148°16′ E. d.

The highest peak of the Australian continent is located in the Australian Alps in the south of the state of New South Wales in the territory of the national park of the same name. Mount Kosciuszko was discovered in 1840.

The first ascent of Australia's highest mountain in 1840 was made by the Polish traveler, geographer and geologist Pavel Edmund Strzelecki. He named the mountain in honor of the military and political figure Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

Pyramid of Carstens (Puncak Jaya)- the seventh of the “seven peaks”, the highest mountain in Australia and Oceania.

There are disagreements about which mountain should be considered the last, seventh peak. If you consider only the Australian continent, then this would be Kosciuszko Peak. If we consider the whole of Australia and Oceania, then it will be the Carstens Pyramid with a height of 4884 m. In this regard, there are currently two “Seven Summits” programs, including the first and second option. But the main option is still recognized as the program with the Carstens Pyramid.

Geographical coordinates of Mount Puncak Jaya are 4°05′ S. w. 137°11′ E. d.

Mount Puncak Jaya is located in the western part of the island New Guinea and is part of the Maoke massif. The highest peak in Oceania is also the highest mountain located on the island. The mountain was discovered in 1623 by Dutch explorer Jan Carstens. In honor of him, Mount Puncak Jaya is sometimes called the Carstens Pyramid.

The first ascent of the mountain was made in 1962 by a group of four Austrian climbers led by Heinrich Harrer.

The highest mountains in the world by continent and country. The highest peaks on Earth.

Note: there is still debate among scientists whether to include it or not Caucasus Mountains to Europe. If so, then Elbrus will be the highest peak in Europe; if not, then Mont Blanc. Until unanimity has been reached on this issue, we have classified the Caucasus as part of Europe, and therefore the Caucasus Mountains (Russia) are included in the list of the highest mountains in Europe.

Mountain peak	A country	Height, m
The highest mountains in Europe
Elbrus	Russia	5642
Dykhtau	Russia	5203
Koshtantau	Russia	5152
Pushkin Peak	Russia	5100
Dzhangitau	Russia	5085
Shkhara	Russia	5068
Kazbek	Russia - Georgia	5033,8
Mizhirgi	Russia	5025
Katyn-Tau	Russia	4970
Shota Rustaveli	Russia	4860
Gestola	Russia	4860
Mont Blanc	France	4810
Jimara	Russia	4780
Ushba	Georgia	4695
Wilpata	Russia	4646
Sauhokh	Russia	4636
Dufour	Switzerland - Italy	4634
Kukurtli-Kolbashi	Russia	4624
Maylihoh	Russia	4597,8
Sallynngantau	Russia	4507
Weisshorn	Switzerland	4506
Tebulosmta	Russia	4492
Sugan	Russia	4489
Matterhorn	Switzerland	4478
Bazarduzu	Russia - Azerbaijan	4466
The highest mountains in North America
McKinley	Alaska	6168
Logan	Canada	5959
Orizaba	Mexico	5610
St. Elijah	Alaska - Canada	5489
Popocatepetl	Mexico	5452
Foraker	Alaska	5304
Iztaccihuatl	Mexico	5286
Lukeinia	Canada	5226
Bona	Alaska	5005
Blackburn	Alaska	4996
Sanford	Alaska	4949
Wood	Canada	4842
Vancouver	Alaska	4785
Churchill	Alaska	4766
Fairweather	Alaska	4663
Bare	Alaska	4520
Hunter	Alaska	4444
Whitney	California	4418
Elbert	Colorado	4399
Array	Colorado	4396
Harvard	Colorado	4395
Rainier	Washington	4392
Nevado de Toluca	Mexico	4392
Williamson	California	4381
Blanca Peak	Colorado	4372
La Plata	Colorado	4370
Uncompahgre Peak	Colorado	4361
Creston Peak	Colorado	4357
Lincoln	Colorado	4354
Grays Peak	Colorado	4349
Antero	Colorado	4349
Evans	Colorado	4348
Longs Peak	Colorado	4345
White Mountain Peak	California	4342
North Palisade	California	4341
Wrangel	Alaska	4317
Shasta	California	4317
Sill	California	4317
Pikes Peak	Colorado	4301
Russell	California	4293
Split Mountain	California	4285
Middle Palisade	California	4279
The highest mountains in Asia
Chomolungma (Everest)	China - Nepal	8848
Chogori (K-2, Godwin-Austen)	Kashmir - China	8614
Kanchenjunga	Nepal - India	8586
Lhotse	Nepal - China	8516
Makalu	China - Nepal	8485
Cho Oyu	China - Nepal	8201
Dhaulagiri	Nepal	8167
Manaslu	Nepal	8156
Nangaparbat	Pakistan	8126
Annapurna	Nepal	8091
Gasherbrum	Kashmir - China	8080
Broad Peak	Kashmir - China	8051
Gasherbrum II	Kashmir - China	8035
Shishabangma	China	8027
Gyachung Kang	Nepal - Tibet (China)	7952
Gasherbrum III	Kashmir - China	7946
Annapurna II	Nepal	7937
Gasherbrum IV	Kashmir - China	7932
Himalchuli	Nepal	7893
Dastoghil	Pakistan	7884
Ngadi Chuli	Nepal	7871
Nuptse	Nepal	7864
Kuniang Kish	Pakistan	7823
Masherbrum	Kashmir - China	7821
Nandadevi	India	7816
Chomolonzo	Tibet (China)	7804
Batura-Shar	Pakistan	7795
Kanjut Shar	Pakistan	7790
Rakaposhi	Kashmir (Pakistan)	7788
Namjagbarwa	Tibet (China)	7782
Kamet	Kashmir (Pakistan)	7756
Dhaulagiri II	Nepal	7751
Saltoro Kangri	India	7742
Ulugmuztag	China	7723
Jeanne	Nepal	7711
Tirichmir	Pakistan	7708
Molamenking	Tibet (China)	7703
Gurla Mandhata	Tibet (China)	7694
Kongur	China	7649
Gungashan (Minyak-Gankar)	China	7556
Muztagata	China	7546
Kula Kangri	China - Bhutan	7538
Ismoil Somoni Peak (formerly Communism Peak)	Tajikistan	7495
Victory Peak	Kyrgyzstan - China	7439
Jomolhari	Butane	7314
Pumori	Nepal-Tibet	7161
Peak named after Abu Ali ibn Sino (formerly Lenin Peak)	Tajikistan	7134
Korzhenevsky peak	Tajikistan	7105
Khan Tengri Peak	Kyrgyzstan	6995
Ama Dablam (Ama Dablan or Amu Dablan)	Nepal	6814
Kangrinboche (Kailas)	China	6714
Khakaborazi	Myanmar	5881
Damavand	Iran	5604
Bogdo-Ula	China	5445
Ararat	Türkiye	5165
Jaya	Indonesia	5030
Mandala	Indonesia	4760
Klyuchevskaya Sopka	Russia	4750
Trikora	Indonesia	4750
Belukha	Russia	4509
Munhe-Khairkhan-Uul	Mongolia	4362
The highest mountains in South America
Aconcagua	Argentina	6962
Ojos del Salado	Argentina	6893
Bonete	Argentina	6872
Bonete Chico	Argentina	6850
Mercedario	Argentina	6770
Huascaran	Peru	6746
Llullaillaco	Argentina - Chile	6739
Erupakha	Peru	6634
Galan	Argentina	6600
Tupungato	Argentina - Chile	6570
Sahama	Bolivia	6542
Coropuna	Peru	6425
Ilyampu	Bolivia	6421
Ilyimani	Bolivia	6322
Las Tortolas	Argentina - Chile	6320
Chimborazo	Ecuador	6310
Belgrano	Argentina	6250
Toroni	Bolivia	5982
Tutupaka	Chile	5980
San Pedro	Chile	5974
The highest mountains in Africa
Kilimanjaro	Tanzania	5891,8
Kenya	Kenya	5199
Rwenzori	Congo (DRC) - Uganda	5109
Ras Dasheng	Ethiopia	4620
Elgon	Kenya - Uganda	4321
Toubkal	Morocco	4165
Cameroon	Cameroon	4100
The highest mountains of Australia and Oceania
William	Papua New Guinea	4509
Giluwe	Papua New Guinea	4368
Mauna Kea	O. Hawaii	4205
Mauna Loa	O. Hawaii	4169
Victoria	Papua New Guinea	4035
Chapel	Papua New Guinea	3993
Albert-Edouard	Papua New Guinea	3990
Kosciuszko	Australia	2228
The highest mountains of Antarctica
Vinson array		4892
Kirkpatrick		4528
Markham		4351
Jackson		4191
Sidley		4181
Minto		4163
Verterkaka		3630
Menzies		3313

This article was dedicated to the highest mountains and highest peaks in the world.

The process of formation of mountains on Earth lasts millions of years. They arise from collisions of huge tectonic plates that make up the earth's crust.

Today we will get acquainted with the highest mountains on 6 continents and see how they look against the background highest mountains most of the world's peaks - the “eight-thousanders”, whose height above sea level exceeds 8,000 meters.

How many continents are there on Earth? Sometimes it is believed that Europe and Asia are 2 different continents, although they are one continent:

Before we start talking about the tallest mountains on the 6 continents, let's take a look at the overall chart of the tallest peaks on Earth.

“Eight-thousanders” is the common name for the 14 highest mountain peaks in the world, whose height above sea level exceeds 8,000 meters. They are all in Asia. Conquering all 14 “eight-thousanders” on the planet - conquering the “Crown of the Earth” - is a great achievement in high-altitude mountaineering. As of July 2012, only 30 climbers managed to do this.

North America - Mount McKinley, 6,194 m

This is the highest double-peaked mountain in North America, named after the 25th President of the United States. Located in Alaska.

Indigenous peoples called this peak “Denali,” which means “great,” and during the period of Russian colonization of Alaska it was simply called Big Mountain.

Mount McKinley as seen from Denali National Park:

The first ascent of the main summit of McKinley took place on June 7, 1913. There are 5 large glaciers on the slopes of the mountain.

South America - Mount Aconcagua, 6,962 m

This highest point The American continent, South America, as well as the western and southern hemispheres. They belong to the longest mountain range in the world - the Andes.

The mountain is located in Argentina and in the Quechua language means " Stone Guardian" Aconcagua is the largest extinct volcano on our planet.

In mountaineering, Aconcagua is considered a technically easy mountain if you climb along the northern slope.

The first recorded ascent of the mountain was in 1897.

Europe – Mount Elbrus, 5,642 m

This stratovolcano in the Caucasus is the highest peak in Russia. Considering that the border between Europe and Asia is ambiguous, Elbrus is often also called the highest European mountain peak.

Elbrus is a two-headed volcano with a saddle. The Western peak has a height of 5,642 m, the Eastern - 5,621 m. The last eruption dates back to 50 AD...

In those days, the eruptions of Elbrus were probably reminiscent of the eruptions of modern Vesuvius, but were more powerful. From the craters of the volcano at the beginning of the eruption, powerful clouds of vapors and gases, saturated with black ash, rose many kilometers upward, covering the entire sky, turning day into night. The earth shook from powerful tremors.

Nowadays, both peaks of Elbrus are covered with eternal snow and ice. On the slopes of Elbrus, 23 glaciers diverge in different directions. The average speed of glacier movement is about 0.5 meters per day.

The first successful ascent to one of the peaks of Elbrus was made in 1829. The average annual death toll during climbing on Elbrus is 15-30 people.

Asia - Mount Everest, 8,848 m

Everest (Chomolungma) is the top of our world! The first highest eight-thousander and the highest mountain on Earth.

The mountain is located in the Himalayas in the Mahalangur-Himal range, with the Southern peak (8760 m) lying on the border of Nepal, and the Northern (main) peak (8848 m) located in China

Everest has the shape of a triangular pyramid. At the top of Chomolungma there are strong winds blowing at speeds of up to 200 km/h, and the air temperature at night drops to -60 Celsius.

The first ascent to the top of Everest took place in 1953. From the first ascent to the summit until 2011, more than 200 people died on the slopes of Everest. Now the climb to the top takes about 2 months - with acclimatization and setting up camps.

View from space:

Climbing Everest is not only extremely dangerous, but also expensive: the cost of climbing in specialized groups is up to 65 thousand US dollars, and the climbing permit alone, issued by the Nepalese government, costs 10 thousand dollars

Australia and Oceania - Mount Puncak Jaya, 4884 m

The highest peak of Australia and Oceania, which is located on the island of New Guinea. It is located on the Australian Plate and is the highest mountain in the world located on an island.

The mountain was discovered in 1623 by Dutch explorer Jan Carstens, who saw the glacier at the top from afar. Therefore, the mountain is sometimes called the Carstens Pyramid.

The first ascent of Puncak Jaya took place only in 1962. Name of the mountain with Indonesian language translates roughly as "Victory Peak".

Antarctica - Windson Massif, 4,892 m

These are the highest mountains in Antarctica. The existence of the mountain range became known only in 1957. Since the mountains were discovered American planes, they later received the name Vinson Massif, in honor of the famous American politician Carl Vinson.

View of Vinson Massif from space:

Africa - Mount Kilimanjaro, 5,895 m

It is the highest point in Africa, a huge dormant volcano with two well-defined peaks in northeastern Tanzania. The mountain has no documented eruptions, but local legends speak of volcanic activity 150-200 years ago.

The higher one is the peak of Kibo, an almost regular cone with powerful glaciation.

The name comes from the Swahili language and supposedly means "mountain that sparkles."

The snow cap that has covered the mountaintop for 11,000 years since the last Ice Age is rapidly melting. Over the past 100 years, the volume of snow and ice has decreased by more than 80%. It is believed that this is not caused by a change in temperature, but by a reduction in snowfall.

The highest peak in Africa was first conquered by German explorer Hans Meyer in 1889.

Asian countries: large and small. The largest mountains, islands, rivers and lakes of the continent

Asia is the largest area (44,579,000 km2) and the most populated part of the world (3.88 billion inhabitants) of planet Earth. Together with Europe, it forms a single (not separated by straits) continent of Eurasia, which is connected by the Isthmus of Suez to Africa, and is separated from North America by the rather narrow Bering Strait (maximum width is only 86 km). Asia is washed by the waters of all four oceans: the Pacific, Indian, Arctic and Atlantic (Mediterranean Sea).

• Asia has enough wonders of the world, both those that Mother Nature gave to humanity, like Halong Bay in Vietnam or the wonderful ones in Thailand, and those that were created by man

Some, like the Great Chinese wall or, very famous, others - - not so much, but some (for example, in Japan, the Sigiriya Palace on a cliff in Sri Lanka, the imperial residence in Hue in Vietnam) are still considered attractions of the regional level today, although they clearly deserve more !

Asian countries (47 states):

• Most of Asia's population is concentrated in countries such as China (PRC): over 1.3 billion people, and India: 1.1 billion people, which are the most populous on the planet.

Geography of Asia: mountains, rivers, lakes and islands

Asia is the highest mountainous part of the world: the average height of the territory is 950 meters. The main mountain ranges cross the continent approximately in the middle: in the southwest-northeast direction. The highest plateau, the Tibetan plateau, rises approximately 4,500 meters above the surface of the world's oceans and covers an area of ​​about 2.5 million sq. km.

• This is also where the world's tallest mountain system The Himalayas (which translated from Sanskrit means “dwelling, shelter of snow”), which includes 17 (!) of the highest mountains on the planet. The Chinese-Nepalese Chomolungma (or Everest, 8848 meters), the Pakistani K-2 (Chogo Gangri, 8611 meters) and the Indian-Nepalese Kangchenjunga (Kangchen Dzö-nga, 8586 meters) top this impressive list

Asia is also home to many volcanoes, most of which are active. Among the most famous we highlight:

• Klyuchevskaya Sopka volcano in Kamchatka is the highest active volcano in Eurasia (4750 meters). It remains highly active to this day. The last recorded eruption occurred in 2007
• The Indonesian one (Krakatoa), which once “ate” itself, is also world famous. It was once located on the island of the same name, located between Java and Sumatra, and in 1883 it erupted with a powerful eruption (on the nuclear scale equal to approximately 200 megatons), which was heard even in Perth, Australia, 3,100 kilometers away.

The sky even over Europe was painted an ominous red for a long time due to clouds of ash raised into the atmosphere - the famous Norwegian artist Munch even dedicated it to this. By the way, another eruption of Krakatau (in 1927) “gave birth” to a small (about 2 km in diameter) volcanic island called “Son of Krakatau” (Anak Krakatau). He grows quickly and, like his parent, has a violent temperament

Let's also mention:

Pusuk Buhit, Lake Toba, Indonesia

• Tomboro (Tambora or Tomboro), also located in Indonesia and in 1815 during an eruption (supposedly the strongest in modern history) who destroyed more than 70 thousand inhabitants of the island of Sumbawa
• Indonesian (Lake Toba), which is also a supervolcano and occupies an area of ​​about 100 by 30 km. The largest volcano lake in the world. It is believed that the massive eruption of this volcano approximately 70-75 thousand years ago led to global climate change
• An entire volcanic region is also in Indonesia, which is a popular tourist attraction in the country mainly because of its pristine landscape from the series “This is how the Earth was born”

Mount Fuji in Japan

• (Fuji), considered one of the three Japanese " Sacred Mountains” and having a relatively “meek” disposition. The last recorded eruption dates back to 1707-1708. Fuji is located very close to the Japanese capital, Tokyo, is very loved by tourists and is therefore positioned as one of the main attractions of the “Land of the Rising Sun”.

Any tourist can climb this mountain today - in the summer season!

The Asian continent includes a large number of islands. The largest of these are Indonesian Borneo (third largest, 743,330 km2, after and Papua New Guinea island in the world) and Sumatra (470,000 km2). And the most populated: Indonesian Java (124 million inhabitants according to 2005 estimates) and Japanese Honshu (103 million people).

, Sri Lanka

Some Asian countries are located exclusively on islands: Brunei, East Timor, Indonesia, Cyprus, Maldives, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Philippines and Japan and have no territories on the continent.

• The largest peninsulas of Asia: Hindustan (or the subcontinent of India, with an area of ​​4,480,000 sq. km), the Arabian Peninsula, the Indochina Peninsula, the Kamchatka Peninsula, the Korean Peninsula

The largest rivers of continental Asia

• Chinese Yangtze (with a length of 6300 km - 3rd in the world after the South American Amazon and the African Nile)
• Russian river system Yenisei-Angara-Selenga (5540 km)
• Chinese Yellow River (“Yellow River”, 5464 km)
• Russian river system Ob-Irtysh (5410 km)
• Russian-Chinese-Mongolian river system Amur-Argun (4444 km)
• Russian Lena (4400 km).

All these rivers and river systems are included in the list of the ten largest on planet Earth.

The largest lakes in Asia

• The Caspian Sea (with an area of ​​371,000 km2) is a colossal body of salt water that is recognized by various sources as either a sea or a lake
• (37,500 km2), in addition to being the deepest lake in the world (1,470 meters) and the largest body of water in terms of fresh water volume (23,600 cubic km)
• Balkhash (18,428 km2).

It is noteworthy that all of these reservoirs are located entirely or partially on the territory of the former USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics).