Barskoon (Kyrgyz: Барскоон; Russian: Барскаун, romanized: Barskaun;[2] Persian: بارسغان) is a settlement on the southern shore of Lake Issyk Kul in the Issyk-Kul Region of Kyrgyzstan.

There are ruins of an ancient caravanserai in Barskoon, providing testament to the times when caravan routes dispersed from here China and India in the East and South.

In the spring of 1998, a lorry carrying cyanide used in the gold refining process was involved in an accident - leaving the road and crashing into a stream.

Popular folk etymologies link it to the snow leopard, called ilbirs in Kyrgyz and bars in many Turkic languages.

Mahmud al-Kashgari is best known as the author of the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, the first comparative dictionary of the Turkic languages, which he wrote whilst living in Baghdad in 1072-4.

Sabuktigin became one of the most prominent generals of 10th-century Central Asia, married Alptigin's daughter, and became the founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty, which ruled large parts of Iran, Afghanistan and northwestern India until 1186.

There are two interesting sights along the road - a Soviet lorry mounted on a plinth and a bust of Yuri Gagarin, who holidayed on the South shore of Issyk Kul after his historical first manned space flight.