"Gold Diggers in the Desert" is an adventure novel about gold mining in the Dzungarian desert. The main characters are Mafu and Liu Pi, two Chinese gold prospectors who work daily in the mine, extracting ore rich in grains of yellow metal. Their lives are filled with difficulties: a greedy official is trying to illegally defraud prospectors, hidden gold can become the prey of thieves, and around the mine there is a desert with wolves and the evil hyifyn wind. When the heroes decide to try their luck at a new mine, their plans are disrupted by an uprising of Dungan Chinese Muslims who have rebelled against the authorities. War, robberies and murders turn the life of gold diggers into a struggle not only for gold, but also for survival.The novel is based on the research that the writer, geologist and traveler Vladimir Obruchev (1863-1956) conducted in Dzungaria, a part of Western China adjacent from the southeast to the borders of Eastern Kazakhstan. There he studied mining systems and the history of local gold mining.