27 December 1894] – 22 September 1965) was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary best known for taking part in the execution of the Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his family and four others on the night of 16 July 1918.
In January 1915 he was drafted into the Imperial army, but due to congenital diseases was only fit for wartime militia units and not for regular service.
Early in 1916 Grigory moved to Tavatui near Yekaterinburg and started working at the construction site of the dynamite plant (Таватуйский динамитный завод).
Very soon after moving he was drawn to local Bolsheviks and met Mikhail Kabanov who helped him become a devoted follower of Lenin.
In March 1917 Nikulin became a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP).
As a result of financing problems with French joint-stock company, plant activists decided to stop all work with the construction of this facility early in 1918.
One of the first was discrete surveillance of Alexander Ivanovich Andogsky, the head of the Military Academy of Workers' and Peasants' Red Army.
Later the same year Andogsky joined the White forces, was dismissed from the Military Academy and eventually was appointed as General in Kolchak's Army.
Nikulin was also in charge of soldier selection for train convoy L-42, on 30 April 1918 where Tsar Nicholas II and part of his family were moved from Tyumen to Yekaterinburg.
Dolgorukov was executed 10 July 1918 in cold blood by Nikulin, a week before the killing of Tsar Nicholas II and his family.
Dolgorukov was taken to a field beyond the city's Ivanovskoe Cemetery with Count Tatishchev and the two were shot in the head and thrown into a pit.
Nikulin recalled the incident in his radio interview 1964: "Я вывез его в поле и проклял всё пока тащил чемоданы назад" (I took him out to the field and cursed everything while I was dragging his suitcases back).
Nikulin was also involved in death of Hermogenes, Bishop of Tobolsk and Siberia, who was drowned in the Tura River by the Bolsheviks.
After getting the final approval from the Central Executive Committee in Moscow Yurovsky organized a meeting in American Hotel.
On 17 July, right after midnight Yurovsky woke up the Tsar, his family, doctor and servants, 11 persons altogether and guided them to an empty room in the lower floor of the house.
Long after this event, in private conversation with the son of Mikhail Medvedev, Nikulin said that he couldn't bear having the sick boy looking at him and stopped shooting.
Nikulin initially left a good impression on the Imperial family during visits to the Ipatiev House with Yurovsky.
From 1933 to 1935 he worked at MosSovet on a problem concerning building materials manufacturing, and from 1935 to 1938 he was the head of MosZhilOtdel (Moscow Housing Department).
In 1927 Nikulin and Yurovsky made an application to the USSR Revolution Museum and handed them two revolvers which were used in the killing of Imperial Family.
Before dying he wrote a warm farewell letter to his dear friend Nikulin leaving him a list of documents to be delivered to the Revolution Museum.