In the early 1890s, Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin had the idea to purchase a periodical that would advertise his printed products, among other things. On June 22, 1891, he bought an inconspicuous weekly magazine “Around the World” (“Vokrug Sveta”) from the Werner brothers, who founded it in 1885. At the time of purchase, the subscription price of the magazine was four rubles, and the number of subscribers was 4,500.

In the first years after he acquired the publication, Sytin attracted famous writers as contributors, including Konstantin Mikhaylovich Stanyukovich and Dmitry Narkisovich Mamin-Sibiryak. Oleographic reproductions of paintings by Lagorio, Klever, Lebedev and other artists were published as supplements to the magazine. A year later, thanks to the work of the new editors, the circulation of the magazine tripled. In 1897, 42,000 people became readers of the magazine.

“Around the World” became a popular science illustrated magazine for the general reader. Its pages featured materials not only on geography, but also on new achievements and discoveries in science. Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin tried to invite scientists to write for the magazine. For instance, in a letter, Yakov Perelman — a physicist, journalist, member of the Russian Society of Lovers of Astronomy and popularizer of exact sciences who developed the genre of “science for entertainment” — inquired about the possibility of his transition to the editorial office of the magazine “Around the World”.

In 1911, articles about aviation were published in each issue, and the first airplanes were depicted on the covers. The magazine printed useful information on medicine, gardening, and animal husbandry. Pages with puzzles also were included. New headings were introduced: “Scientific Chronicle”, “From the Field of Natural Science”, “From the Life of Plants”, “Geography and Ethnography”, “Astronomy and Cosmography”. Readers learned about the expeditions to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott in 1911 and the discovery of the archipelago Severnaya Zemlya by Boris Andreyevich Vilkitsky who led the hydrographic expedition on the ships “Taimyr” and “Vaigach” in 1913.

For four rubles a year, subscribers received 50 issues of the illustrated magazine and 12 literary supplements. From 1916, the famous magazine “On Land and at Sea”, revived under the name “Adventure Magazine”, became a permanent supplement to “Around the World”. The publication described scientific expeditions, geographical discoveries, beliefs and legends of different peoples, printed biographies of famous people, stories of travelers, and reported on scientific discoveries, grandiose projects, catastrophes in the air and dramas in the ocean.