.......Mikhail Kalashnikov was born on November 10, 1919, in the
village of Kurya, Altai Territory. In 1938, Kalashnikov was called
up for military service, served in the Kiev special military district
and graduated from a school of tank drivers. During his service,
Kalashnikov showed his desires to be an inventor. He devised an
inertia revolution counter to register the number of actual shots
from a tank gun, made enhancemets for the TT pistol to increase
fire effectiveness through tank turret slits and designed a tank
running time meter.
In June 1941, Mikhail Kalashnikov, as an inventor, was sent by
military district commander General of the Army G.K. Zhukov to
Leningrad to implement his recent invention. From the outset of
the Great Patriotic War senior sergeant Mikhail Kalashnikov fought
against fascist invaders as a tank commander. In October 1941
he was seriously wounded in the violent battle of Bryansk.
While in the hospital, Kalashnikov conceived the idea of a submachine
gun. Later while on a six-month sick leave, he came to the Matai
depot and, assisted by the depot personnel, realized his invention
is the depot shops. With the submachine gun he left for Alma-Ata.
Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan Kaishingulov sent
the inventor to the Ordzhonikidze Moscow Aviation Institute which
had been evacuated to Alma-Ata. A second model of Kalashnikov's
submachine gun was devised and made in the shops of the Institute
aviation ordnance department. In June 1942 the model was sent
for reference to the Dzerzhinsky Ordnance Academy located in Samarkand.
A.A Blagonravov, an outstanding Soviet small arms specialist,
displayed interest in senior sergeant Kalashnikov's submachine
gun, Although the submachine gun was not recommended for service,
the talent, efforts and original design approaches of the self-taught
designer were highly appreciated. In 1942 Kalashnikov was assigned
to the Central Research Small Arms Range of the Main Ordnance
Directorate of the Red Army.
In 1944 Mikhail Kalashnikov devised a prototype of the self-loading
carbine; its main assemblies were used as a basis for an assault
rifle made in 1946. In 1947, Kalashnikov's updated assault rifle
displayed high reliability and fire effectiveness during arduous
competitive tests and was found best. In 1949, after modifications,
the assault rifle, designated "Kalashnikov 7.62mm assault
rifle, make 1947 (AK)," became operational in the Soviet
Army and Mikhail Kalashnikov received the Stalin Prize First Class.
Since 1949 Mikhail Kalashnikov has been living and working in
Izhevsk. He worked his way up from soldier to General Designer
of small arms in the Soviet Army.
Between 1950 and 1970, a series of unified small arms weapons
developed by Kalashnikov-AKM, AKMS, AK-74, AKS-74, AK-74U, RPK,
RPRS, RPK-74, RPKS-74, PK, PKS, PKM, PKSM, PKT, PKTM, PKB, PKMB-were
adopted. The Soviet government highly appraised Kalashnikov's
contribution to the defense might of the country; he was twice
honored as Hero of Socialist Labor (1958 and 1976), won the Stalin
Prize (1949) and granted Doctor's degree (1971) and promoted to
the rank of Colonel (1969), awarded three Orders of Lenin, Order
of the Red Banner of Labor, Order of the Patriotic War First Class,
Order of the Red Star and many medals of the Supreme Soviet of
the USSR.
Since 1980 Mikhail Kalashnikov has been a citizen of honor in
his native village of Kurya, where a bronze bust was set up, as
he was twice awarded Hero of Socialist Labor. Since 1987 he has
been an honorable citizen of Izhevsk. To commemorate the 75th
anniversary of the great designer, Russia's President Boris Yeltsin
himself bestowed Mikhail Kalashnikov with the Order "For
Distinguished Services for the Motherland" Second Class and
promoted him to Major-General.
The automatic weapons of the Kalashnikov system are widely used
the world over. Since 1990, after the breakup of the USSR and
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Kalashnikov small
arms have been extensively or partially operational in the armies,
used by special-task forces or manufactured for export to the
following countries: Albania, Azerbaijan, Algeria, Armenia, Angola,
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Bosnia,
and Herzegovina, Botswana, Hungary, Vietnam, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala,
Guinea, Guinea - Bissau, Haiti, Gambia, Guyana, Honduras, Georgia,
Djibouti, Egypt, Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe, North Yemen, South Yemen,
Israel, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan,
Campuchia, Cape Verde, China, Qatar, Colombia, Comoros, Congo,
North Korea, Cuba, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lesotho, Lebanon,
Lybia, Lithuania, Mauritania, Madagascar, Macedonia, Mali, Maldives,
Malta, Morocco, Mozambique, Moldova, Namibia, Nigeria, the Netherlands,
Nicaragua, United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal,
Russia, Romania, Swaziland, Sao Tome and Principe, Seychelles,
Slovakia, Slavonia, Syria, Somali, Sudan, Surinam, Sierra Leone,
Tajikistan. Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan,
Uganda, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, the Philippines, Finland, Croatia,
Czechia, Sweden, Sri Lanka, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Ethiopia.
South Africa and Yugoslavia According to various sources, about
70 million Kalashnikov assault rifles of various modifications
were manufactured by the middle of 1990, both in Russia and other
countries.
Kalashnikov small arms are extremely popular throughout the world
asserting that the AK assault rifle helped them gain sovereignty,
some countries included its representation in their national emblems,
while in others newborn boys are named "Kalash."
What is behind the unprecedented popularity of the Kalashnikov
assault rifle and its modifications, as manifested in a heraldic
symbol?
Mikhail Kalashnikov has obtained an optimum combination of a number
of features of the weapon, ensuring its high firing effectiveness
and reliability. These include the short locking assembly, balanced
bolt, unseating of the cartridge case after shot, preventing failure
during extraction of fired cases, insensitivity to contamination
and trouble-free operation in any climatic conditions.
The automatic weapons of the Kalashnikov system have been the
focus of home and foreign historians concerned with arms. Many
world military historical museums made a collection of his weapon
models. They are primarily standard weapons adopted for service
at different times in different countries. The most considerable
collection of experimental and standard small arms, developed
by Mikhail Kalashnikov during 1942-1990, is kept in the Military
Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineer Troops and Communications
in St. Petersburg, the oldest military museum of Russia, until
1964 generally known as the Artillery Historical Museum.
The collection was saved by the museum, thanks to the persistence
of the Main Ordnance Directorate command. A considerable reduction
of the Soviet Armed Forces in 1959 led to the abandonment of the
Research Small Arms Range, where all innovatory models of small
arms for armed forces had been tested from 1920. The collection
of small arms devised by Soviet designers between 1920 and 1959
was contributed to the fund of the Artillery Historical Museum
in Leningrad. Naturally, the museum collected all standard models
of the Kalashnikov system, which became operational in the Soviet
Army in the period of 1949-1980. The Museum also collected all
Kalashnikov systems and modifications adopted and manufactured
abroad. However, today things do not look so promising. Only 31
models out of a variety of previously and currently world-produced
modifications of Kalashnikov automatic small arms have been collected.
A second collection amassed at the Izhmash JSC in Izhevsk, where
Mikhail Kalashnikov has headed a design bureau since 1949. The
Izhevsk collection comprises mostly systems developed by Kalashnikov
after 1960.