Avraami Zavenyagin

Lieutenant-General Avraami Pavlovich Zavenyagin (1 May 1901, Uzlovaya – 31 December 1956; his first name is also sometimes given as Avram or Abraham) was a leading figure in the Soviet nuclear projects of the 1940s and 1950s.

A protégé of Lavrenti Beria, Zavenyagin survived the purge after the death of Joseph Stalin because of a long friendship with Nikita Khrushchev, which dated back to the 1920s. During the Khrushchev era, he headed the Ministry of Medium Machine Building, responsible for nuclear weapons production, for two years. He died of a heart attack in 1956.