An Epic Walk Through The Russian Wilderness

Event information

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.

“A gripping, moving travelogue [and] a meditation on the role of memory in a fascinating place with a tumultuous, tragic past” (“The Economist”)



Tom Parfitt spent twenty years working as a correspondent in Moscow for “The Guardian”, “The Daily Telegraph”, and “The Times”. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. “High Caucasus” – his debut book – was shortlisted for multiple literary prizes and hailed as a masterpiece by the great travel writer Redmond O’Hanlon.

Artist and writer Clive Jennings is Arts Editor of both the Fitzrovia News and the Soho Clarion. He had a career in fashion and and as an art-dealer, print publisher and curator, during which he ran galleries in Mayfair, Fitzrovia and Chelsea, as well as organising the Contemporary Print Show at the Barbican.