Leonid Kostandov (; 27 November 1915 – 5 September 1984) was a Soviet engineer and politician who served as the minister of the chemical industry between 1965 and 1980 and as the deputy premier from 1980 to his death.

Biography

Being a native of Kerki,

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, Kostandov was born on 27 November 1915 into an ethnic

Armenian Armenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia * Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent ** Armenian diaspora, Armenian communities around the ...

family. He started his career in a local

cotton gin A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.. Reprinted by McGraw-Hill, New York and London, 1926 (); ...

, and then he worked in a silk-weaving mill in 1930. He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering in 1940. He joined the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

in 1942. Following his graduation he began to work as a manager in a chemical plant in Chirchik. In 1951 he was awarded a Stalin Prize. He was appointed to the central administration of the chemical industry in Moscow in 1953. From 1963 to 1964, he was chairman of the State Committee for Chemical and Oil-Refining Machine-Building. He was named as the minister of the chemical industry in October 1965 and remained in the post in 1980. The same year he was appointed deputy prime minister responsible for chemical and related industries. Kostandov was a close friend of Armand Hammer and, in 1981 following US President

Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...

lifting the United States agricultural embargo against the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

on 25 April 1981, assisted the David Murdoch and Occidental Petroleum controlled Iowa Beef Processors (IBP), which was the biggest and most advanced beef-packer in the world, to gain access to the Soviet market for IBP's United States beef. Kostandov died of a heart attack on 5 September 1984 while he was visiting a fair in

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East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

. He was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis after the official funeral ceremony held in

Red Square Red Square ( rus, Красная площадь, Krasnaya ploshchad', p=ˈkrasnəjə ˈploɕːɪtʲ) is one of the oldest and largest town square, squares in Moscow, Russia. It is located in Moscow's historic centre, along the eastern walls of ...

, Moscow.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kostandov, Leonid 20th-century Russian engineers 1915 births 1984 deaths Burials at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis Candidates of the Central Committee of the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Candidates of the Central Committee of the 23rd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Deputy heads of government of the Soviet Union Members of the Central Committee of the 24th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Members of the Central Committee of the 25th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Members of the Central Committee of the 26th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering alumni People's commissars and ministers of the Soviet Union Seventh convocation members of the Soviet of Nationalities Eighth convocation members of the Soviet of Nationalities Ninth convocation members of the Soviet of Nationalities Tenth convocation members of the Soviet of Nationalities Eleventh convocation members of the Soviet of Nationalities Recipients of the Stalin Prize Recipients of the Lenin Prize People from Lebap Region Recipients of the Order of Lenin Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Russian people of Armenian descent Soviet chemical engineers