Akademiia Nauk Range

(Academy of Sciences Range), a mountain range in the West Pamir, Tadzhik Soviet Socialist Republic. It has the highest point in the USSR—Communism Peak (7,495 m). The range is about 110 km long and extends meridionally. The crest has alpine topography—24 peaks rise higher than 6,000 m. The range is formed of sedimentary and metamorphic rocks of the Paleozoic era and partly of granite. The permanent snow-caps feed a great number of large glaciers (the upper parts and tributaries of the Fedchenko, Garmo, and other glaciers). The overall area of glaciation is 1,500 sq km. The landscape is of the high-mountain glacionival and subnival rocky mountain type. The Akademiia Nauk Range was discovered by N. L. Korzhenevskii and named in honor of the Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union in 1927.