The collection includes correspondence, manuscripts, memoirs, diaries, notes, subject files, documents, photographs, and printed materials. Most of the material in the collection concerns Nikolaev's tenure as military attachʹe at the Russian embassy in Washington. Cataloged correspondents include Mikhail T. Florinsky and Geroid T. Robinson. There is a typescript by Vasiliĭ O. Kli︠u︡chevskiĭ, "Kratkoe posobie po russkoĭ istorii." Among the correspondence are cablegrams and official communications to the Russian embassy during World War I and the revolutionary period. Manuscripts, mostly by Nikolaev, concern contemporary and historical military topics. Diaries and memoirs deal with Nikolaev's travels to Europe during World War I and his activities as military attachʹe. Among orders granted to Nikolaev is the "Order of the Sacred Treasure," signed and sealed by the Japanese Emperor Meiji (1911). Printed materials include many articles by Nikolaev.

Papers of Wardwell. These papers chiefly concern the 1917-1918 American Red Cross Mission to Russia, in which Wardwell served, and his involvement in efforts to support trade with and aid to Russia in 1919-1924; he was chairman of the Russian Famine Fund in that period. There are a few items concerning the 1941 W.A. Harriman-Lord Beaverbrook mission to Russia, in which Wardwell participated. Materials on the Red Cross Mission are chiefly from May-October 1918, when Wardwell commanded it; they consist of correspondence, reports, documents, many photographs, and transcribed excerpts from Wardwell's diary and letters home. Major correspondents include Georgiĭ Chicherin, Lev Trot︠s︡kiĭ, and Raymond Robins. Records of Wardwell's efforts in regard to Russia in 1919-1924 consist of extensive correspondence files with prominent Americans, such as Robins and Herbert Hoover, manuscripts, related printed materials, and Wardwell's diary of his trip to Russia in the fall of 1922.