Leonid Kostandov (Russian: Леонид Костандов; 27 November 1915 – 5 September 1984) was a Soviet engineer and politician who served as the minister of the chemical industry between 1965 and 1980 and as the deputy premier from 1980 to his death.
Being a native of Kerki, Turkmenistan, Kostandov was born on 27 November 1915 into an ethnic Armenian family.[1][2] He started his career in a local cotton gin, and then he worked in a silk-weaving mill in 1930.[1][2] He graduated from the Moscow Institute of Chemical Engineering in 1940.[2] He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1942.[2] Following his graduation he began to work as a manager in a chemical plant in Chirchik.[1] In 1951 he was awarded a Stalin Prize.[1] He was appointed to the central administration of the chemical industry in Moscow in 1953.[1] He was named as the minister of the chemical industry in October 1965[2] and remained in the post in 1980.[1] The same year he was appointed deputy prime minister responsible for chemical and related industries.[1]
Kostandov died of a heart attack on 5 September 1984 while he was visiting a fair in Leipzig, East Germany.[1][3] He was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis after the official funeral ceremony held in Red Square, Moscow.[3][4]