Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the key figures in modern Polish prose. Russian readers are familiar with his novel “The White Raven”, the story “Duklya”, short stories and essays. “On the Way to Babadag” is a narrative about a journey through Central Europe, including elements of adventure, essays, and travel prose. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Moldova - the author crosses them by car, hitchhiking, by train, on foot. Sometimes he returns to places he has seen before, re-realizing himself first and foremost as a Central European. After 1989, the question of the “Europeanness” or “Central Europeanness” of these countries became quite acute. For the Polish consciousness, belonging to Europe and self-identification with it is a painful and complex topic that includes many experiences: nostalgia, dreams, hidden complexes, etc. A. Stasiuk has already addressed this problem, but for the first time he does this on such a huge, varied and fascinating material. In addition, here the writer deliberately refuses to correlate Central Europe with the West and East. He describes this space, not protected from the historical elements, unstable, fickle, with blurred boundaries, as not just unique, but as if the only one in the world.