Note: Nikolai's biography is extremely complex, so I have tried very hard to be brief here.
Nikolai Stepanovich Zephyroff was the the eldest son of a priest and teacher, born in Alatyr in 1887. He, like Lenin, was a gold medal student at Simbirsk high school. He was arrested for the first time when he was 16, for speaking against the new land reforms. He was released to attend St Petersburg university a year later, and graduated with honours in Economics.
He had an extremely successful early career, working all over Siberia and Turkestan as an economist, journalist, author and businessman. He was a member of the Siberian chapter of the Russian Geological Society and a supporter of charities for the blind. In 1917 he was in St Petersburg to speak at the special government meeting on the food issue, and was caught up in the events of the February revolution. He became a trustee of the provisional government.
In January 1918 he was arrested by the Bolsheviks. After his release he was invited by AP Mikhailov to become a member of the anti-Soviet government in Siberia and he took the post of Minister of Food. He was then responsible for supplying the white armies with provisions. He remained in that position after the Kolchak coup. On the 1st of April 1919 he was arrested by the Kolchak government during a Cabinet crisis and soon freed on bail. He was sent to Irkutsk to continue the case, but he escaped and hid in that region under an assumed name, working as a manager in the local railway depot. In February 1920 he fled to Harbin.
In Harbin he found work as a journalist and as a manager in the Eastern railway. He published a book on the Eastern railway in 1925 and was invited by the CER to help develop the port of Shanghai. He resigned from this position in 1930 and started his own business, Shanghai Importers, on the advice of the Soviet consul. 3 years later, his supply of goods was cut by the Soviets. He tried to switch to petroleum, but soon ended up in debtors prison.
Once his creditors were satisfied he began publishing a newspaper "New World" funded by the Soviet consulate. Subsequently he worked for the Moscow Narodny bank in the hopes of a transfer back to Russia, but the desired transfer was not forthcoming. He now created the Soviet Citizens Club of Shanghai, and was president of this charitable club until after the war. An Englishman describing this club, which took over his home while he was interned by the Japanese, said that it was almost entirely responsible during the war for supporting the Russian community. It provided free medical and dental services, a school, a theatre, had it's own radio station and an aged care facility.
He was arrested by the Japanese after the war but the Soviet consulate obtained his release. He then applied to return home and was granted his wish in 1947. He was interned in a reimmigrant camp, but concentrated on work in the local mining operations. In 1949 he was arrested by the KGB and interrogated over the course of 6 months. Accused of being a spy for the Japanese he was sentenced to 25 years hard labour in the gulag "The Rock". He died in 1952 of a brain tumor.
