Vsevolod Vladimirovich Ovchinnikov is an international journalist and writer who worked for many years in China, Japan, and England. A new direction in domestic journalism is associated with his name: a successful attempt to create a psychological portrait of foreign society. The author’s creative credo: “to convince the reader that you cannot measure someone else’s life by your own yardstick, you cannot rely only on the familiar system of values and criteria, because they are by no means universal, like the grammatical norms of our native language.” The dilogy “Ascension to Shambhala” and “With My Own Eyes” describes the author’s travels not only in space - from New Zealand to Peru, but also in time - from the mid-50s of the 20th century to the present day. Vsevolod Ovchinnikov writes his book “With My Own Eyes” constructed as a story about an imaginary trip around the world through two dozen countries on all continents. The author shares his impressions of the wonders of the world that he was able to see: the cave temples of Ajanta in India and the ancient settlements of the Mayan people in Mexico, mysterious drawings on the Nazca plateau in Peru and the inexplicable skill of psychosurgeons in the Philippines, operating without instruments. The leitmotif of the book is the idea of mutual penetration and enrichment of different national cultures, the common roots of human civilization.