Kavkazem a Střední Asií s batohem v 80. letech – Valcl Oldřich (2022)

This Czech-language travel book recounts the experiences of a group of Czech mountain hikers travelling through the mountains and historic sites of the former Soviet Union, including the Caucasus, the Pamirs, the Pamir-Alai, Georgia, Armenia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. They climb endless slopes carrying 30-kilogram backpacks under a relentless sun, rewarded by majestic peaks, twisted trees, colourful flowers, glacier tongues, snowfields, rushing streams and distant shepherds riding donkeys. The book is intended for anyone who has experienced this and developed a lifelong love of the mountains, a close connection with nature, an awareness of their own insignificance, and the knowledge that everything needed for life can be carried on their back. It also asks how the Soviet Union dealt with a shortage of workers on cotton plantations, how a donkey is driven and what kumis tastes like, what happens when anti-diarrhoeal medicine is mistaken for sleeping pills, and what to do when you look up from photographing flowers and discover that you are surrounded by a pack of feral sheepdogs.