High Caucasus

A Mountain Quest in Russia’s Haunted Hinterland

By: Tom Parfitt

Narrated by: Tom Parfitt

'Outstanding' TIMES

'Gripping' ECONOMIST

SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL CHRISTOPHER BLAND PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE PUSHKIN HOUSE BOOK PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR

Emotionally scarred after witnessing the bloody climax of the Beslan school siege in Russia's North Caucasus, in which 314 hostages died, Tom Parfitt set out on a journey. In High Caucasus, he shares his remarkable thousand-mile quest in search of personal peace - and a greater understanding of the roots of violence in a region whose fate has tragic parallels with the Ukraine of today.

Starting in Sochi on the Black Sea and walking the mountains to Derbent, the ancient fortress city on the Caspian, Parfitt traverses the political, religious and ethnic fault-lines of seven Russian republics, including Chechnya and Dagestan. Through bear-haunted forests, across high altitude pastures and over the shoulders of Elbrus, Europe's highest mountain, he finds companionship and respite in the homes of proud, little-known peoples. This is a stunning story of confronting trauma through connection with history, people and place.©2023 Tom Parfitt (P)2023 Headline Publishing Group Ltd

Critic reviews

Tom Parfitt has written an extraordinary book, a thrilling, profound masterpiece. His curiosity, courage and empathy shine from every page. I was gripped, from start to finish (Nicholas Crane, author of Clear Waters Rising)

A thrilling and beautiful book. Tom Parfitt's extreme walk along Europe's wildest frontier - through the mosaic of restive statelets on the southern edge of Russia - is epic in itself, but it offers too a drill-down into the deepest layers of human experience - collective memory and individual survival, the legacy of horror and the joy of healing (Philip Marsden, author of The Summer Isles, The Spirit Wrestlers and The Crossing Place)

Superb. Tom Parfitt is one of our great travel writers: curious, indomitable and brave. His account of his journey on foot across the North Caucasus is a masterpiece of observation and lyrical prose. (Luke Harding, author of Invasion)

With this book, Tom Parfitt has re-invented travel writing for the 21st century. He's an adventurer with a heart; a journalist who saw too much death, but who - instead of running to the next crisis - confronted the horror and crafted a testament for its victims (Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland)