“In Soviet Russia, mountain climbs you.”
Pik Kommunizma is the former Soviet Union’s and Pamir’s highest peak. It is one of the five Snow Leopard mountains.
The official name is nowadays Pik/Peak Ismail Somoni, but the name hasn’t stuck and a guess is that it never will. The name of the peak is a little history of itself. It was called Pik Garmo until 1933, when it was changed to Pik Stalin. Nikita Chrustov decided to change the name to Pik Kommunizma in 1962. In 1998 the leadership of Tajikistan decided to baptize the peak after the founder of the original Tajik state – Ismail Somoni.
Pik Kommunizma is a huge peak and even though it’s surrounded by other high mountians it really dominates the area. It is located in a sub-range of the Pamirs called Akademii Nauk or the Academy of Science Range. The first expedition to the mountain was done in 1932, but wasn’t climbed until the year after. The first ascent was made via the east ridge in september 3, 1933. The two summiteers were Eugeny Abalakov and Nikolay Gorbunov.
http://www.summitpost.org/page/150290
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismoil_Somoni_Peak
cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenin_Peak
Submitted by LP
