​The article explores the features of the spatial organization of the world in the essays written by P. Vail. The objects of study are the writer's books "The Genius of the Place" and "The Map of the Motherland." The study subjects are spatial images, the nature of which is essayistic. The images of the USA, Japan, Europe, and Latin America are analyzed as critical components of the world's spatial picture in the work of the Russian emigrant. The emphasis is made on the uniqueness of American culture. It is concluded that the topos and the area stimulate the author to think; his travels are realized in the spiritual world, where thought moves from a real geographic space to the actual topos of imagination or memory and then returns to a specific locality that the essayist had seen before. Another feature of the author is how his thoughts transition to the topos of the work of literature, virtual reality.​