Nikolai Dionisyevich Merkulov

Russian White movement Imperial establishment and White movement 1869–1945 ○ Died in exile in Qingdao

Vladivostok merchant, minister in his brother’s Provisional Priamur Government, later adviser to Zhang Zongchang in exile

Born in Blagoveshchensk, he became a merchant of the first guild with a steamship line on the Amur and a match factory in Vladivostok, and sat for years on the Vladivostok exchange committee and chamber of commerce. In 1912 he stood unsuccessfully for the State Duma as a Kadet. From May 1921 to June 1922 he was military and naval minister and foreign minister of the Provisional Priamur Government headed by his brother Spiridon, then foreign minister under Diterikhs until October. In exile he became senior adviser to the Shandong warlord Zhang Zongchang, helped organise the Russian Nechaev brigade in his army, and organised and funded the Russian Fascist Party. He lived in Shanghai from 1932 and died in Qingdao in 1945.