Winter Memories of Summer Feelings

In the year 1862, Dostoevsky embarked on his first journey abroad. He passed through Germany and arrived in Paris, where he stayed for only ten days before traveling to London for two weeks. He then returned to Paris and spent another two weeks there, before heading to Geneva via the city of Basel. In Geneva, he met his friend Nikolay Strakhov, and together they visited Italy. Strakhov later wrote: "Neither nature, nor buildings, nor artistic monuments interested him; his entire attention was directed toward people."
This profound diver into the depths of the human soul turned all his attention to the people—on the streets, in theaters, and in cafes. He tried to understand the psychology of each nation during this swift journey, which lasted about two months.
When Dostoevsky published these "memories," he spoke little about the journey itself. Rather, he used the trip as a backdrop to express his views on Russian history and its condition, and to satirize the countries he had visited—mocking Germany and England, and especially France. He begins his commentary on France with a quote by von Vieren: "The Frenchman is deprived of reason; if he were granted reason, it would be the greatest misery that could befall him." As for Italy and Switzerland, he mentions them neither in praise nor in criticism.