Iskanderkul

Iskanderkul is a mountain lake at an altitude of about 2,195 metres in the Fann Mountains of western Tajikistan, on the northern side of the Gissar range. Its name means “Alexander's lake”: Iskandar is the Persian form of Alexander, and kul is a Turkic word for lake. The lake covers about 3.4 square kilometres and is ringed by steep, bare peaks, some snow-covered for much of the year. Its water changes colour with the light, from milky turquoise to deep blue.

Alexander of Macedon campaigned in Sogdiana, the Iranian-speaking land between the Oxus and the Jaxartes, from 329 to 327 BCE, and stories of him cling to many places in the region. Local legends tell that he passed this way, and some say his horse Bucephalus drowned in the lake, or that his army flooded a village to form it. None of these tales is history, but they show how deeply Iskandar, a figure of Persian epic as well as Greek history, lives in local memory.

Near the outflow of the lake, a river drops through a narrow gorge in a waterfall, and a path leads to viewpoints above it. The surrounding valleys are home to Tajik villages, and the lake has long been a favourite place for summer outings from Dushanbe, reached by a mountain road from the north, while trekkers set out from here into the high Fann Mountains.