>>2195364It's a term used in the book roadside picnic. it's also used in a movie and the video game series S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Wikipedia has a pretty good summary:
In the book, stalkers is a people who trespass into the forbidden area known as the Zone and steal its valuable extraterrestrial artifacts, which the stalkers sell. The authors say they took the term from the Stalky & Co novel. In Russian, after Tarkovsky's film, the term acquired the meaning of a guide who navigates forbidden and uncharted territories; later on, fans of industrial tourism, especially those visiting abandoned sites and ghost towns, were also called stalkers.
You can read the full history in the book afterwords. I am not gonna link it because it's too big and would ruin the ending if i don't edit it properly.
