Mariia Danilovna Kniazeva

Born Sept. 18, 1918, in the village of Aleshkovichi, in present-day Sevsk Raion, Briansk Oblast. Team leader of the grape crew at the ’Sudak’ wine-making sovkhoz in the Crimean Oblast (1946–64). Twice Hero of Socialist Labor (1955, 1958). Became a member of the CPSU in 1957.

Kniazeva has been a worker in the sovkhozes of the Crimea since 1934. Her crew raised high yields of grapes every year (in 1954,120,200 centners from 1 hectare). She was a delegate to the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, a member of the Crimean oblast committee of the CPSU in 1957–58, and a deputy of the oblast soviet in Simferopol’ from 1959 to 1964. She retired in 1964. Kniazeva has been awarded the Order of Lenin and medals of the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition, including the great gold medal.