Evgenii Kozhevnikov

Born Dec. 25, 1905 (Jan. 7, 1906), in Tsaritsyn, present-day Volgograd. Soviet statesman. Hero of Socialist Labor (1975). Member of the CPSU since 1942.

The son of an office worker, Kozhevnikov graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Communications Engineering in 1927. From 1928 to 1943 he was among the upper managerial personnel on the construction of the Turkestan-Siberian Railroad, the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Combine, and the Kuznetsk Locomotive and Railroad Car Building Plant. Kozhevnikov was also chief engineer of Nikel’stroi and Ormed’stroi and manager of the Iuzhuraltiazhstroi Trust during this period. From 1944 to 1945 he was chief of Central Specialized Construction of the People’s Commissariat for Construction of the USSR, from 1947 to 1949, and deputy chairman of Gosplan (the State Planning Commission of the USSR).

Kozhevnikov was deputy chairman of the Bureau on Fuel and Transport of the Council of Ministers of the USSR from 1949 to 1951, and Minister of Transport Construction from 1954 to 1963. He served as chairman of the State Production Committee on Transport Construction of the USSR and as a minister of the USSR from 1963 to 1965. From 1965 to 1975 he was minister of transport construction of the USSR. Kozhevnikov was elected to the Central Committee of the CPSU at the Twenty-second (1961), Twenty-third (1966), and Twenty-fourth (1971) party congresses. He was a deputy to the sixth through the ninth convocation of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Kozhevnikov has been awarded four Orders of Lenin, three other orders, and various medals.