Born in the Rostov gubernia into a peasant family. He began working at the age of fifteen. He laboured as a boiler-maker at the Taganrog metallurgical plant, completed his studies at the evening classes of the Taganrog Workers' Faculty. In 1929 he became a member of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). He studied at the Bauman Moscow Technical Institute and then at the Military Engineering Academy of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, which he completed in 1935. In the pre-war and war years he participated in the construction of the biggest defence enterprises in the Urals. For his exemplary execution of assignments for the construction of defence industry facilities three orders were conferred upon him. In the following years he was deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation and chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers' Commission for Capital Investments.
In the light of the expansion of Moscow's territory in 1960, when it came to encompass several towns and villages as far as the ring road, as well as the formation of seventeen administrative capital districts, it was Dygai's task to strengthen ties between the Moscow City Executive Committee and the local authorities, coordinate their actions and integrate the newly incorporated territory into the general Moscow infrastructure.
Under the direct leadership of the chairman of the Executive Committee the first version of the feasibility study of the General Plan for the development of Moscow in the years from 1961 to 1980 was also worked out. In essence it amounted to the following: the rational settlement of Muscovites with the help of multi-faceted housing and industrial construction and the harmonious development of all branches of the city economy. In the first decade it was planned to make an end to the housing shortage, and in the second decade, to provide every family with a separate apartment.
N.A. Dygai was characterised by an exceptional capacity for work, efficiency and exactingness to himself and his subordinates. He was able in a short space of time to activate and improve the functioning of the staff of the Moscow City Executive Committee as well as its various services, and made several forward-looking proposals to the government which were aimed at improving life in the city. He was not afraid to oppose the attempts of those above to regulate all matters regarding building in Moscow.
Buried in the Kremlin wall on Red Square.
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