Sumbatov (Topuridze), Yuvelyan Davidovich

(1889–1960)

   After a career as a political agitator, Sumatov joined the Red Army during the Russian civil war and commanded an armored train. He joined the Cheka in 1920 and advanced in the Azerbaijan Republic service. In the late 1930s he was transferred by his patron Lavrenty Beria to work in the gulag program. In 1945 he was promoted to lieutenant general, but two years later he left the security service to work as deputy premier of the Azeri Republic. He fell along with Beria and was arrested in July 1953. Sumbatov survived trials for treason by pretending to be psychologically ill. He was in and out of institutions several times before his death in 1960.