Nikolai Dygai

Born Nov. 11, 1908, in the village of Pokrovskoe, in what is now Neklinov Raion, Rostov Oblast; died Mar. 6, 1963, in Moscow. Soviet state and party leader. Member of the CPSU from 1929.

Dygai was the son of a peasant and was a boilermaker at the Taganrog Metallurgical Plant from 1927 to 1929. After graduating from the Military Engineering Academy in 1935, he worked on the construction of the Niznhii Tagil Metallurgical Combine from 1935 to 1936 and was elected chairman of the Executive Committee of the Niznhii Tagil City Soviet in 1937. In 1938, Dygai was appointed chief of the Urals Heavy Industry Construction Trust and in 1939 chief of the Central Construction Trust and in 1939 chief of the Central Construction Administration for the Urals and a member of the collegium of the People’s Commissariat for Construction of the USSR. Dygai held the posts of deputy minister (from January 1946) and minister (from June 1947) of construction of military and naval enterprises of the USSR; minister of construction of machine building of the USSR (1950-53); and minister of construction of the USSR (1954-57). He was further first vice-chairman of GOSPLAN (State Planning Commission) of the RSFSR (1958-59), chairman of the Commission on Capital Investments of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers of the USSR with the rank of minister of the USSR and then first deputy minister of transport construction of the USSR (1959-61). He was elected chairman of the Executive Committee of the Moscow City Soviet in September 1961. Elected a candidate member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1952 and a member of the Central Committee in 1961, Dygai was deputy to the fourth through sixth Supreme Soviets of the USSR. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, two other orders, and medals. He is buried in Moscow near the Kremlin wall.