Alexey Nechaev was born on the 19th of January, 1864 in the family of a priest. The student of Professor Alexander Antonovich Shtukenberh, in 1887 Nechaev graduated from the University of Kazan with the degree of candidate of science, and the following year he was admitted as professorial fellow to the University of Kazan. In 1889 he was appointed as a keeper of the Geological office.
He is the author of paleontological research works - the monography "Fauna of the Permian sediments of the eastern strip of the European Russia" (1894). On the basis of this fundamental work he defended in his thesis in March 1895 and received a degree of the Master of mineralogy and geognosy. In May of that year, he was approved as the assistant professor in the Department of Mineralogy and Geology.
Since 1895 A. Nechayev began working as an employee of the Geological Committee, engaging himself in (1895-1901) Geological Survey of 129 and 130 sheets of tenfolding map of European Russia. Finding time for studying paleontology, in 1898 Nechayev defended his doctoral thesis "Fauna of Eocene deposits on the Volga between Saratov and Tsaritsyn." A year later, in May 1899 he was appointed as extraordinary professor in the Department of Mineralogy and Geology of the University of Kazan, but in November he moved to Kyiv, where he served as full professor in the Department of Mineralogy and Geology in the newly formed (1898) Polytechnic Institute.
During his stay in Kiev Polytechnic Institute as a professor, and in recent years also as a dean of the faculty of chemistry (1903-1911), Nechayev had a lot of strength and energy to give administrative and teaching activities. He organizes and equips geological and mineralogical study-room with necessary collections and equipment. He prepared and published, along and in collaboration with his colleagues, textbooks on crystallography, mineralogy, geology. Repeated reprint of these books, which are characterized by clarity and simplicity of presentation, have the evidence of their popularity.
Brought up in the spirit of human values respect, A.V. Nechayev all his life firmly adhered to liberal views. It significantly complicated performing his duties as the dean, which happened in the First Russian Revolution and the subsequent onset of the reaction. All the early decades of the XX century were characterized by the absence of a stable government policy of empire in relation to higher education. This is evidenced by the fact that during the reign of Nicholas II eight ministers of Education were replaced. University autonomy one day was expanded, another day it went down the drain. In 1911 the Council of Ministers issued a decree banning the higher educational institutions of public and private student fees, with the exception of research ones. The whole responsibility for all students’ strikes was put on educational administration, warning students by all means, including the police. With his constitutional and democratic views Nechayev was hardly in charge as the dean, which was getting more like a post-police superintendent. At the beginning of 1911 L.A. Kass was appointed as the Minister of Education, who decided to quickly empty the universities of the cadets. Undesirable person was asked to resign immediately. This also affected A.V. Nechaev, and many other professors from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute of Kiev, Moscow, Kazan and other Russian universities.
Resignation from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute did not mean the end to Nechaev teaching career. But he decided to permanently leave the Russian system of higher education and in 1912 moved to St. Petersburg, devoting the rest of his life exclusively to scientific activity. He got a job at the Geological Committee as an employee and a year later he was transferred to the position of the office staff geologist. Unfortunately, his being in St. Petersburg was not long – on the 6th of August 1915 he died suddenly of heart disease.
Well-educated paleontologist and stratigrapher, extremely hard-working and conscientious, O.V. Nechaev, according to the thoughts of his contemporaries, had a distinct philosophical approach to solving scientific problems. In the history of geology the name of Alexei Vasilievich is permanently connected to Ufa and Kazan tiers of upper Permian of European Russia. Impartially having summarized the accumulated material, Nechayev synthesized a cornerstone of the Permian system, which for years was the basis of stratigraphy. It is the works of Nechaev that reconciled the supporters of different views and allowed them to move from collisions to detailed and systematic paleontological and stratigraphic studies of Permian sediments.
The most important works: "Kazan Zakamye in geological relationship" (in cooperation with P. Krotov, "Proceedings of the Kazan Society of Natural History", Vol. XXII, no. 5); "Geological studies of Mamadyshskyi County" (vol. XXIII, c. 6); "Geological survey of the northwestern part of the province of Kazan" (Vol. XXV, c. 3); "Geological survey of the southern upland of Kozmodemyanskyi and Cheboksary counties" (Vol. XXXIII, c. 4); "Fauna of Permian sediments of eastern strip of the European Russia" (Vol. XXVII, c. 4); "Fauna of Eocene deposits on the Volga between Saratov and Tsarytsyn" (Kazan, 1898, doctoral dissertation); "Salt-sulfur keys onear the Bohoyavlensky plant" ("Proceedings of the Geological Committee", 1907); "Fauna of Permian sediments on the east and far north of European Russia" (ib., 1911); "Mountain Bukhara" (1914), books on mineralogy and crystallography (1908).