The magazine was conceived by a Warsaw-born entrepreneur, Maurycy Bolesław Wolff, who defined Vokrug Sveta as a lavishly illustrated yearly publication, dedicated to "physical geography, natural sciences, the most recent discoveries, inventions and observations".

The Wolff edition was discontinued after 1868 for unclear reasons,[2] but the project of a popular geographical journal was revived in 1885 by Ivan Sytin, a printer who directed his periodicals toward a wider audience.

Sytin's Vokrug sveta was issued monthly and featured original translations of popular adventure fiction from such authors as Jules Verne, Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle.

In 1938, the magazine's headquarters relocated, from Leningrad to Moscow and its publication was altogether suspended during World War II.

For Soviet readers, Vokrug sveta represented a rare source of authentic, fully illustrated information about foreign cultural attractions.