NIKOLAIEVSK, a district town of Russia, in the government of Samara, on the right bank of the Irghiz, lies 48 miles from the Volga and 109 miles to the south-west of Samara. Its 10,000 inhabitants are mostly Raskolniks, or of the “United Church,” and about 2000 Tartars occupy a separate part of the town. The chief occupation of the Russian and Tartar inhabitants is agriculture and cattle-breeding, in the products of which the merchants carry on a lively trade. The industries (tallow-melting and tanning) are unimportant. The fertility of the soil in the district favours commerce, as well as the development of large villages, many of which—Poganovka (6000 inhabitants), Ekaterinstadt (5000), Porubejka (5000), and several others—are more important and wealthier than many district towns of Russia. The famous Irghiz monasteries of the Raskolniks occur along the Irghiz in the same district, whilst the left bank of the Volga is studded with rich German colonies.

Under the name of Metchetnoye, Nikolaievsk was founded in 1762, by Raskolniks who had fled to Poland and returned when Catherine II. undertook to grant them religious freedom. The monasteries which were founded at the same time became the refuge of numerous runaway serfs, and so the focus of the disturbances which broke out in 1773. In 1828 serious prosecutions began, with the result that the monasteries were closed with the exception of three, which were handed over in 1829 and 1836 to the United Church by order of Government. In 1835 the name of Metchetnoye was changed to Nikolaievsk.

For Nikolaievsk-on-the-Amur, a town of Eastern Siberia, on the left bank of the estuary of the Amur, 23 miles from the Gulf of Amur, see Maritime Province, vol. xv. p. 548.

NIKOLAIEVSKAYA SLOBODA, a village of Russia, in the government of Astrakhan and district of Tsareff, 3 miles from the Volga, on its left bank, opposite Kamuishin. It dates from about the end of the last century, when a number of Little-Russians settled here for the transport of salt from Lake Elton. Although still but a village, it has about 30,000 inhabitants, and is one of the chief centres on the lower Volga for the trade in corn and salt.