Historian Maral Tompiev has discovered a previously unknown peak which he believes may be the highest point in Saryarka, or the Kazakh Uplands, in Central Kazakhstan, Liter.kz reported.
Tompiev had encountered descriptions of the Karkaraly Mountains numerous times in the works of travelers of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in the mid-19th century and in the 1865 Geographical and Statistical Dictionary of the Russian Empire edited by Semenov-Tyanshansky. In these works, Tompiev was most surprised by the description of two mountain peaks covered in snow year-round.
“At first, I assumed it was Aksoran Peak, marked on maps as the highest in the Kazakh Uplands. But it was a hundred kilometers south of the mountains described in the sources. The clue came unexpectedly. In 2024, for the first time in 80 years, there was a very snowy winter. And where there had never been snow on the peaks during that period, it still remained. It would have been foolish not to take advantage of this opportunity and travel back in time, literally returning to the mid-19th century,” says Tompiev.
The search for the mysterious peak began with the help of an interactive digital map. It turned out that the heights of already known peaks in the Kazakh Uplands differed from those indicated on Tsarist, Soviet, and modern Kazakh maps.
“Soviet, and later modern, maps showed that Aksoran in the Kyzylarai Mountains was the highest peak in Saryarka. However, some mid-19th-century sources described two adjacent peaks near the Karkaraly Mountains, which are covered in snow year-round,” says the historian.
Thanks to satellite imagery, researchers identified the peaks described in the 19th century. They went there and measured their heights.
Tompiev discovered a 1,563-meter-high mountain cluster, which turned out to be the highest peak in the Kazakh Uplands. Previously, three officially recognized highest points in central Kazakhstan were Aksoran in the Kyzylarai Mountains, Tursun Peak in the Kent Mountains, and Komsomolsky Peak in Karkaraly. Now, according to Tompiev, it can be confirmed that the highest peak in Saryarka is the Maraltau mountain range, with an elevation of 1,563 meters.
Tompiev hopes that his discovery will attract more tourists to this area.
Photo: Maral Tompiev
