During this time, he became a member of Land and Liberty, advocating the abolition of serfdom and a progressive transformation of Russia.

He and his companion were arrested by the Austrian police in Moravia, on suspicion of spreading dangerous propaganda against Austria.

It was only in 1867 that Rovinsky, as a correspondent for the Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti, got the chance to visit Croatia, Slavonia, as well as the Serbian lands of Austria.

From Irkutsk, he makes several excursions to various regions of Transbaikalia arriving in Bichura on 20 July 1871, where he stayed for three months.

Rovinsky had close ties with the family of Chernyshevsky, with whom he met during his student days and who was the cousin of his friend Alexander Pypin.

[1] Rovinsky accepted the offer of Alexey Suvorin, editor of the newspaper Novoye Vremya, and having left the post of director of the orphanage, went as a correspondent to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In May 1879, he arrived in the Principality of Montenegro where, thanks to the help of his friend Alexander Pypin, he was promoted to freelance dragoman of the Russian diplomatic mission.

[1] In 1890, the Montenegrin prince Nicholas, who took a liking to Rovinsky, unexpectedly invited him to excavate the ancient Roman city of Doclea.

The Glas Crnogorca newspaper wrote about them, and the Russian Journal of the Ministry of National Education published a large essay by Rovinsky titled "The Excavation of Ancient Dioclea" in several of its issues.

During his stay, he also collected old folk songs and wrote various materials for Russian newspapers and magazines on life in Montenegro.

He was buried in the writers' footways section of Volkovo Cemetery in Saint Petersburg, where his rites were read by hieromonk Mardarije Uskoković.

[2] A Society of Montenegrin-Russian Friendship (Serbian: Društvo crnogorsko-ruskog prijateljstva) founded in Podgorica on 24 November 2007 also bears Pavel's name.