Born in St Petersburg in the middle of the nineteenth century into the Romanov family, he had a very privileged childhood. Most royal children were brought up by nannies and servants so by the time Nikolai had grown up he lived a very independent life having become a gifted military officer and an incorrigible womanizer. He had an affair with a notorious American ladyFanny Lear. Due to his affair, he stole three valuable diamonds from the revetment of one of the most valuable family icons. He was declared insane and he was banished to Tashkent.
Later life
He lived for many years under constant supervision in the area around Tashkent in the southeastern Russian Empire and made a great contribution to the city by using his personal fortune to help improve the local area. In 1890 he ordered the building of his own palace in Tashkent to house and show his large and very valuable collection of works of art and the collection is now the center of the state Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan. He was also famous in Tashkent as a competent engineer and irrigator, constructing two large canals, the Bukhar-aryk and the much more successful Khiva-Aryk, later extended to form the Emperor Nicholas I Canal, irrigating 12,000 desyatinas, 33,000 acres of land in the Hungry Steppe between Djizak and Tashkent. Most of this was then settled with Slavic peasant colonisers. Nikolai had a number of children by different women. One of his grandchildren, Natalia Androsova, died in Moscow in 1999.
Death
Nikolai died of pneumonia on 26 January 1918. He was buried in St. George's Cathedral.
Family
Nikolai married Nadezhda Alexandrovna von Dreyer, daughter of Orenburgpolice chief Alexander Gustavovich von Dreyer and Sophia Ivanovna Opanovskaya, in 1882. Two children were born from this marriage:
Artemi Nikolayevich Prince Iskander , killed in the Russian Civil War
, married Olga Iosifovna Rogovskaya / Rogowska on 5 May 1912. The couple had two children. Alexander and Olga were later divorced, and Alexander married Natalya Khanykova in 1930. No children resulted from the latter marriage.
