Somoniyon is a town in Tajikistan

Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

. It is the administrative capital of Rudaki district

Rudaki district

Rudaki District or Nohiyai Rudaki is a district in the Region of Republican Subordination in Tajikistan. It stretches south from Dushanbe, bordering on Shahrinaw, Hisor, and Varzob districts from the north and northwest, Tajikistan's Khatlon Province from the south and the east, and Uzbekistan...

 in the Region of Republican Subordination

Region of Republican Subordination

Districts of Republican Subordination is a region in Tajikistan, consisting of 13 districts which are directly under central rule.-History:...

, lying 17 km south of the national capital of Dushanbe

Dushanbe

-Economy:Coal, lead, and arsenic are mined nearby in the cities of Nurek and Kulob allowing for the industrialization of Dushanbe. The Nurek Dam, the world's highest as of 2008, generates 95% of Tajikistan's electricity, and another dam, the Roghun Dam, is planned on the Vakhsh River...

 and just east of the Kofarnihon River

Kofarnihon River

Kofarnihon River or Kofirnihan is one of the major tributaries of Amudarya...

. Its population in 2007 is estimated at 18,600.

Former names

The village was established in 1938 under the name of imeni Karakhon Sardorova , commemorating one of the prominent figures in the struggle for the Soviet rule against the Basmachi

Basmachi Revolt

The Basmachi movement or Basmachi Revolt was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim, largely Turkic peoples of Central Asia....

. In 1970, on the occasion of Lenin's

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

 100th anniversary, it was renamed Lenin or Leninskiy. In 1998, it was renamed Somoniyon in honor of the 1100th anniversary of the Samanid Empire. Locals sometimes refer to the village by the historical name Kuktosh or Koktash (Uzbek

Uzbek language

Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 25.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia...

for "blue stone").

External links

• Somoniyon official web site . Retrieved 26 January 2009.