Nikolai Kletochnikov

In 1877, he entered the St Petersburg Medical-Surgical Academy, hoping to make contact with radicals and become a revolutionary, but ill health forced him to return to Simferopol, and then Penza.

[1] In 1878, Kletochnikov returned to St Petersburg and contacted A.D.Mikhailov, the leading organiser of the illegal socialist society, Zemlya i volya ("Land and Liberty") and volunteered to commit any act of terrorism as directed.

[3] There he impressed his superiors by his willingness to work hard, and with his excellent calligraphic handwriting, and was given the task of copying important documents.

When Zemlya i volia, Kletochnikov transferred his allegiance to Narodnaya Volya, which was planning and eventually carried out the assassination of the Tsar Alexander II, of which Mikhailov was the main organiser.

Already terminally ill, he went on hunger strike in July 1883 while being held in solitary confinement in the Alexis Ravelin of Peter and Paul Fortress.