Which regiment does Nikolai Rostov serve in?

Nikolai Rostov serves in the Pavlograd Regiment.

In War and Peace, Nikolai joins the Russian cavalry as a hussar and becomes an officer in the Pavlograd Hussar Regiment. His military career begins with youthful enthusiasm: he wants to prove his courage and serve Russia in the struggle against Napoleon, but actual combat quickly exposes the difference between romantic ideas of glory and battlefield reality.

The regiment is also associated with Nikolai's friend and superior officer, Vasily Denisov. Together they appear in the campaigns of the Napoleonic Wars, including the engagements around Schöngrabern and Austerlitz. The regiment therefore serves as an important setting for Nikolai's early development, friendships, pride, and gradual maturation.

The historical unit behind Tolstoy's fictional regiment was the Pavlograd Hussar Regiment, later known as the 2nd Pavlograd Life Hussar Regiment. Readers sometimes confuse it with elite Guards regiments such as the Preobrazhensky or Semyonovsky, but Nikolai's unit is specifically a hussar formation. Denisov's connection to the same regiment is a useful clue.