"Iskandar" is what Alexander the Great was called across the East. "Kul" means lake in Turkic languages. Iskanderkul — literally, the Lake of Alexander the Great. And this is no mere pretty name — behind it lie legends that have been told here for more than two thousand years.
One of them goes like this: during his campaign against Sogdiana, Alexander encountered resistance from a mountain village that flatly refused to submit. Enraged, the commander ordered the rivers to be redirected and the defiant villagers drowned — and so the lake was born. Another legend tells that his faithful horse Bucephalus drank from the lake's icy waters and fell ill, and that at the bottom of Iskanderkul, a fiery horse named Rakhsh still grazes to this day — the steed of the hero of the ancient epic Shahnameh.
The lake lies among the spurs of the Hissar Range in Tajikistan's Fann Mountains, just 130 kilometres from Dushanbe. It is a moraine-dammed lake, formed by a massive landslide — possibly triggered by a powerful earthquake. Nearby lies another wonder: a waterfall on the Iskanderdaria River, known locally as the "Fann Niagara." The water drops 43 metres, and the roar reaches you long before the waterfall comes into view.
