Archil Viktorovich Gelovani

Born Nov. 14 (27), 1915, in the village of Spatagori, in what is now Tsageri Raion, Georgian SSR; died Aug. 19, 1978, in Moscow. Soviet military leader. Marshal of the engineer troops (1977). Member of the CPSU from 1941.

Gelovani entered the Soviet Army in 1939. He graduated from the S. M. Kirov Georgian Industrial Institute in 1936 and from the training courses at the F. E. Dzerzhinskii Higher Naval Engineering School in 1939. During and after the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 he held administrative positions in engineering. He was named assistant commander of the Black Sea Fleet in charge of construction in July 1959, and, beginning in March 1962, he headed a series of military construction directorates of the Ministry of Defense. Gelovani served as first deputy chief of construction and billeting of troops of the Ministry of Defense from 1969 to 1971 and was named deputy minister of defense of the USSR in charge of construction and troop billeting in March 1974.

Gelovani received the Lenin Prize in 1968 and the State Prize of the USSR in 1977. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War First Class, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, two Orders of the Red Star, the Order for Service to the Motherland in the Armed Forces of the USSR Third Class, and various medals. Gelovani also was awarded foreign orders and medals.