The article deals with the Russian novelist Vsevolod Krestovskij (1839–95). Krestovskij was one of the most popular Russian writers in the 1860s, but was almost completely forgotten during the 20th century. Although his novels attained new popularity in the 1990s, there is still little research on his life and work. The article sheds light on Krestovskij’s biography, particularly on his fascination for Poland and the phase of his life when he worked as an editor of the Varshavskii Dnevnik, a Russian daily newspaper in Warsaw, in order to explore how it infl uenced his literary work.