To celebrate the paperback launch of this 2024 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards, Travel Book of the Year shortlisted book, Tom Parfitt came to Stanfords last night to talk to Tom de Waal about High Caucasus. It was such a fascinating, moving and sobering evening hearing these two experts on the region talk about reminiscences and predictions.
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.
High Caucasus is available now in paperback for £12.99. All our copies are signed by the author while stocks last.
Watch Tom Parfitt talk to Ann Morgan about High Caucasus at the Stanfords Travel Writers Festival back in February: