The highest point of the Altai, which the Altaians call Uch-Sumer and hold to be forbidden: one did not climb it, or speak loudly at its foot. Nicholas Roerich came here in 1926 and tied the mountain to Belovodye and Shambhala; his paintings made Belukha the centre of a Russian esoteric pilgrimage that has not dried up. The peak stands almost equidistant from three oceans — a fact the esotericists are fond of citing.