Kammala jumla mai zuwa: A farkon shekarun 1860s ya ga shaharar Maykov a kan tashi: sau da yawa ya yi a fili kuma manyan mujallu na Rasha sun wallafa ayyukansa. A tsakiyar shekarun 1860s ya sake komawa zuwa sansanin masu ra'ayin mazan jiya, kuma ya zauna a can har tsawon rayuwarsa. Ya yi Allah wadai da matasa masu tsattsauran ra'ayi, kuma ya nuna goyon baya ga kalaman kishin kasa na Mikhail Katkov game da
Tashin hankali na Poland da kuma manufofin Rasha a gaba ɗaya. A cikin waƙoƙi kamar "Fields" (wanda ya yi amfani da kwatancin Gogol na Rasha a matsayin troika, amma kuma ya nuna tsoro ga tsarin jari hujja mai tasowa), "Niva" da "The Sketch" ya yaba da gyare-gyaren 1861, yana haifar da tsauraran ra'ayoyi daga Saltykov-Schedrin da Nikolay Dobrolyubov. Da yake karɓar koyarwar Pochvennichestvo, Maykov ya zama kusa da Apollon Grigoriev, Nikolai Strakhov, da Fyodor Dostoyevsky; abokantakarsa da na ƙarshe ya tabbatar da cewa ya kasance mai ƙarfi kuma mai ɗorewa.