History of Tien Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan
It must be interesting to know the history of Tien Mountains if you planned to travel to Kyrgyzstan. The existence of the Tian Shan (also known as the Celestial Mountains for most travellers in Kyrgyzstan) has been known since ancient times. Despite records and observations from many early travellers, information about the Tian Shan remained "more legend than fact" in the outside world, until the expeditions of Russian geographer and explorer Pyotr Semyonov in the 19th century. For this contribution of investigating of mountains of Kyrgyzstan, he was awarded the honorary title Tienshansky by the tsar. In fact, the southern edges of the range were first described by the Buddhist monk Hsuan Tsang in the 7th century BC, who wrote of "encountering nothing but ice and snow. The snow falls in both in summer and spring in mountains of Kyrgyzstan. In Kyrgyzstan night and day the wind rages violently." The Tian Shan would have also been visible to Marco Polo, who, if his account is to be believed, travelled to Kyrgyzstan along this route in 1273 with his father and uncle.
