confluence of the Ingul with the Bug, at the head of the liman, or estuary, of the Bug, and is the natural outlet for the basin of that river. The estuary, which is 25 m. long, enters that of the Dnieper. The entrance to the double estuary is protected by the fortress of Ochakov and by the fort of Kinburn, erected on a narrow headland opposite, while several forts surround Nikolayev on both sides of the Bug and protect it from an attack by land. Over the bar at Ochakov the water has been deepened to 25 ft., and over the bar of the Dnieper to 20 ft. by dredging. The town, which occupies two flat peninsulas between the Bug and the Ingul, extends up the banks of the latter, while its suburbs reach still farther out into the steppe. The streets are wide, and intersect one another at right angles. The bank of the Ingul is taken up with shipbuilding yards, docks, slips and various workshops of the admiralty for the construction of armour-plates, guns, boilers, &c. On the river there is a floating dock for armoured ships. Before the Crimean War the activity of the dockyards was very great; the suburbs—which belong to the admiralty—were bound to supply the necessary hands to the number of 3000 every day, and all the inhabitants had to perform compulsory service. Since 1870 the construction of armoured ships and torpedo-boats has been carried on here. From 1893 Nikolayev was the chief port for the Russian volunteer fleet, which sailed to and fro between this port and Vladivostok until the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. Nikolayev has steam flour-mills, iron and machinery works, saw-mills, soap, tobacco, vinegar, carriage and agricultural machinery works. The foreign exports consist almost entirely of cereals, especially wheat and rye, with a little sugar, iron and manganese ore and oilcake. The total value reaches £7,000,000 to £9,000,000 annually. Navigation is maintained during the whole winter by the aid of a powerful ice-breaker. Nikolayev is the chief market for the governments of Kherson, Poltava, Kharkov, Ekaterinoslav and parts of Kiev, Kursk and Podolia. In addition to the naval harbour, there are the harbour of the Russian Steamship Company and the coasting harbour, made in 1893; while large storehouses stand close to the commercial port, 2 m. from the town, at Popovaya-Balka on the Bug. The educational institutions include an artillery school, a school of navigation, two technical schools, an astronomical and meteorological observatory, museums and libraries, and a hydrographical institute. Amongst the public buildings, the cathedral, which contains some good Italian pictures, the theatre, the artillery arsenal, the admiralty and other state buildings are worthy of mention.
The remains of the Greek colony Olbia have been discovered close to the confluence of the Ingul with the Bug, 10 m. S. of Nikolayev. In medieval times the country was under the Lithuanians, and subsequently under the Zaporogian Cossacks. Russian colonists settled in the locality about the end of the 18th century, and after the fall of Ochakov, Prince Potemkin established (1789) a wharf on the Ingul which received the name of Nikolayev. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
NIKOLAYEVSK, a town of East Siberia, in the Maritime province, on the left bank of the Amur, 20 m. above its outflow into the Gulf of Amur, in 53° 8′ N. Pop. (1897) 8200. It is defended by a fort and batteries. Founded in 1851, Nikolayevsk was formerly the capital of the Maritime province.
NIKOLAYEVSK, a town of Russia, in the government of Samara, on the right bank of the Irgiz, 40 m. from the Volga and 100 m. S.W. of the town of Samara. Pop. (1897) 12,524. Its inhabitants are mostly Raskolniks (i.e. Nonconformists), who have numerous monasteries along the river, and members of the United Greek Church, with about 2000 Tatars. The chief occupations are agriculture and live stock breeding.
Under the name of Mechetnoye, Nikolayevsk was founded in 1762 by Raskolniks who had fled to Poland and returned when Catherine II. undertook to grant them religious freedom. In 1828 serious persecutions 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 Greek Church. In 1835 the name of the town was changed to Nikolayevsk.
NIKOLAYEVSKAYA, SLOBODA, a town of Russia in the government of Astrakhan, 3 m. from the left bank of the Volga, opposite Kamyshin, and 110 m. N. of Tsaritsyn. Pop. (1897) 20,000. It dates from the end of the 18th century, when a number of Little Russians settled there for the transport of salt from Lake Elton. It is one of the chief centres on the lower Volga for the trade in corn and salt.
NIKOLSBURG (Czech, Mikulov), a town of Austria, in Moravia, 53 m. S. of Brünn by rail. Pop. (1900) 8091. It is situated at the foot of the Polau Mountains and near the border of Lower Austria. It possesses a château of Prince Dietrichstein-Mensdorff, which contains an extensive library, with some valuable manuscripts. The Heiliger Berg, in the immediate vicinity, has sixteen chapels, and a church in the Byzantine style. The principal resources are viticulture, the manufacture of cloth, and trade in lime and limestone. On the 31st of December 1621 peace was concluded here between the emperor Ferdinand II. and Bethlen Gabor, prince of Transylvania; and on the 26th of July 1866 a preliminary treaty of peace between the Prussians and the Austrians was signed here.
NIKON [Nikita Minin] (1605–1681), 6th patriarch of Moscow, Russian reformer and statesman, son of a peasant farmer named Mina, was born on the 7th of May 1605 in the village of Valmanovo, 90 versts from Nizhny Novgorod. Misery pursued the child from his cradle, and prematurely hardened a character not naturally soft; he ran away from home to save his life from an inhuman stepmother. But he gave promise betimes of the energy and thoroughness which were to distinguish him throughout life, and contrived to teach himself reading and writing. When he was but twenty his learning and talents obtained for him a cure of souls. His eloquence attracted attention, and, through the efforts of some Moscow merchants, he was transferred to a populous parish in the capital. Shortly afterwards, seeing in the loss of his three little children a providential warning to seek the higher life, he first persuaded his wife to take the veil and then withdrew himself first to a desolate hermitage on the isle of Anzersky on the White Sea, and finally to the Kozhuzersky monastery, in the diocese of Novgorod, of which he became abbot in 1643. On becoming a monk he took the name of Nikon. In his official capacity he had frequently to visit Moscow, and in 1646 made the acquaintance of the pious and impressionable Tsar Alexius, who fell entirely under his influence. Alexius appointed Nikon archimandrite, or prior, of the wealthy Novospassky monastery at Moscow, and in 1648 metropolitan of Great Novgorod. Finally (1st of August 1652) he was elected patriarch of Moscow. It was only with the utmost difficulty that Nikon could be persuaded to become the archpastor of the Russian Church, and he only yielded after imposing upon the whole assembly a solemn oath of obedience to him in everything concerning the dogmas, canons and observances of the Orthodox Church.
Nikon’s attitude on this occasion was not affectation, but the wise determination of a would-be reformer to secure a free hand. Ecclesiastical reform was already in the air. A number of ecclesiastical dignitaries, known as the party of the protopopes (deans), had accepted the responsibility for the revision of the church service-books inaugurated by the late Patriarch Joasaf, and a few other very trivial rectifications of certain ancient observances. But they were far too timid to attempt anything really effectual. Nikon was much bolder and also much more liberal. He consulted the most learned of the Greek prelates abroad; invited them to a consultation at Moscow; and finally the scholars of Constantinople and Kiev opened the eyes of Nikon to the fact that the Muscovite service-books were heterodox, and that the ikons actually in use had very widely departed from the ancient Constantinopolitan models, being for the most part imitations of later Polish and Frankish (West European) models. He at once (1654) summoned a properly qualified synod of experts to re-examine the service-books revised by the Patriarch Joasaf, and the majority of the synod decided that “the Greeks should be followed rather than our own ancients.” A second council, held at Moscow in 1656, sanctioned the revision of the
