Saratov Governorate
Nikishov was born in 1894 the son of a peasant in Varkino, in the Saratov Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Volgograd Oblast). He joined the Communist Party in 1919. He entered a career in the NKVD and became its head for Azerbaijan in 1937, where he directed the purges. In 1938 and 1939 he was the head of the NKVD at Khabarovsk.