It was into the desert that great thinkers, rulers and creative people went for many centuries in order, filled with the silence and peace of the desert, to free up space and strength in "their vessel" for new ideas, decisions and actions. Both great mystics and quite secular characters retreated into the desert. Collector Shchukin crossed the Sinai Desert after the death of his wife and came back to life. It was the desert that inspired Expuri to create the "Little Prince", and Paolo Coelho – the Alchemist.