Mikhail Kalashnikov showed the gift of an inventor and designer even before the war. When he was drafted into the Red Army in 1938, where he received the specialty of a driver mechanic, he developed an adaptation to the TT pistol for more effective firing through the slots in the tank turret, the counters of shots from the cannon and the service life of armored vehicles. The significance of the latest invention is evidenced by the fact that Kalashnikov was summoned by the commander of the Kiev Special Military District, General of the Army Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov. The personal watch became the young designer's first award.
Mikhail Kalashnikov began the Great Patriotic War in August 1941 as a tank commander; in October, in battles near Bryansk, he was seriously wounded and contused. On a six-month vacation after being wounded, Senior Sergeant Kalashnikov developed his first model of a submachine gun.
Since 1942, he has been working at the Central Scientific Research Range of Small Arms (NIPSMVO) of the Main Artillery Directorate of the Red Army. Here, in 1944, a prototype of a multiply-charged carbine was created, which did not go into series, but served as a prototype for an assault rifle. Since 1945, Kalashnikov, taking into account world experience, began the development of automatic weapons for the intermediate cartridge 7, 62x39 of the 1943 model. In 1947, the Kalashnikov assault rifle showed the highest efficiency in competitive tests, and two years later it was put into service under the name AK-47.
At the same time, Mikhail Kalashnikov was sent to Izhevsk and enrolled in the staff of the department of the chief designer of Izhmash, where he still works today. In the design bureau of Kalashnikov, more than a hundred samples of military weapons have been created.
“When I was doing my own thing, I never thought about fame and fortune. My duty is to serve the Fatherland and the people. I have always been against the trampling of our cultural and spiritual values, advocated respect for our fatherly faith and the revival of holy places. In his youth, he was a staunch atheist. In 1950 he joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (it was impossible to pull further). Fifty years later, he received a church order from His Holiness the Patriarch himself. A paradox and nothing more … - Kalashnikov confessed to Patriarch Alexy II, accepting from the hands of Vladyka the Order of the Blessed Prince Dmitry Donskoy.
MUSEUM HISTORY
In the Leningrad Artillery Museum, they decided to open a corner of Kalashnikov, exhibiting some samples of his weapons. Mikhail Timofeevich was invited to the opening, although at that time it was classified.
Forty people gathered in the assembly hall. The head of the museum introduced Kalashnikov, and they immediately began to ask him questions. The gunsmith answered without any pathos, accessible and simple. After the meeting, people approached him for autographs, he signed books, tablets, notebooks.
REFERENCE
Kalashnikov created over 100 types of small arms.
For the creation of the AK-47, Kalashnikov was awarded the 1st degree Stalin Prize. Later, for the AKM assault rifle and the RGS light machine gun, the designer was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1964, Kalashnikov was awarded the Lenin Prize, in 1976 he received the second gold medal "Hammer and Sickle", and in 1998 he became a laureate of the State Prize.
Once the American philosopher and weapons specialist Edward Clinton Isell sent a letter with the following address: “USSR. Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov”and it reached the addressee.
The Kalashnikov assault rifle, along with the plane of the Wright brothers and the Ford car, is one of the top three in the list of thirty inventions of the 20th century that radically changed the life of mankind.
In the belfry of St. Michael's Cathedral in Izhevsk, there is a 200-kilogram Kalashnikov bell, cast by Voronezh craftsmen for the 85th anniversary of the designer.
For the anniversary of Mikhail Kalashnikov, IDGC of Center and Volga Region, JSC opened a new substation named after the legendary designer - Kalashnikov.
Then Kalashnikov was invited to the museum's funds and began to show various samples of small arms, asking about the authors, device, advantages and disadvantages. Questions with connotations … The youth of the designer, his ingenious ideas, lack of higher education - all this gave rise to rumors that Kalashnikov peeped his design of an assault rifle from some foreign model. Mikhail Timofeevich answered slowly, clearly and concretely. One of the military took out a machine gun-pistol with the words that experts could not establish the author of this weapon. It turned out that this is a sample that participated in the competition of the country's leading designers and was tested back in 1943. The author is Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov. What he confessed to those gathered in the museum.
From the memoirs of Livadiy Georgievich Koryakovtsev, design engineer at KB Kalashnikov:
“It was 1959. I join the team after graduation. I just can't understand why they don't show me the premises where the bulk of the designers work! I could not even imagine that ten people with me - this is the whole team. The entire scope of work to improve the AK-47 and the development of a machine gun was carried out only by them!
Having cooked a lot in the Kalashnikov kitchen, I will understand that the process of maturation of a structure is two-sided: ideas move from designers to the Main and back. How many different solutions and suggestions come from everyone trying to prove the correctness of his point of view! But only one makes a decision. He, Kalashnikov, determines the place of each worker in the team and his promotion. Very often he answered some of our suggestions shortly, quietly, calmly: "a dead structure", "it will not work", "very difficult", "this is not for a soldier", "not for mass production." Sometimes he just silently pushes the drawing aside and starts doing his own thing. In such cases, it makes no sense to argue, you leave with your head down. But when his eyes brightened, interest flared up in them, and we lit up. An unprecedented creative excitement and rise of strength appeared.
The ability to customize all the participants in the development: designers, technologists, production workers, other specialists - this is what Kalashnikov masterfully owns and is constantly engaged in it."
WITH A KNIFE TO BREZHNEV
In 1961, Mikhail Kalashnikov decided to come up with a knife, but not a simple one, but a "general", as he called it. Convenient, beautiful - for fishing, hunting, picnic. In order not to be ashamed to present to guests who often visit Izhmash. 16 pieces in one small piece - down to a toothpick!
Together with the designer Vladimir Krupin, in 10 days he made the first version of the knife: the handle was lined with a deer horn, you could see your reflection on the blade.
The copy No. 1 was presented to the Minister of Defense of the USSR with the inscription: “From the Izhmash team. In total, several samples were made, one of them was presented to Brezhnev - then the chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, when he arrived at the enterprise. Mikhail Kalashnikov accompanied the distinguished guest, and Krupin was to bring the knife later. The unusual gift alerted Brezhnev's guards. Krupin was detained and demanded an explanation. He replied that Kalashnikov's gift to others could not be …
The future secretary general was as happy as a child: a knife from the chief designer, with a dedication.
More of these knives were not made; over time, the drawings were also lost.
Retired Colonel Nikolai Shklyaev has been working with Kalashnikov for forty years. In 1959, he was seconded to Izhevsk as a military representative, under his command were military facilities of Udmurtia, Kirov and Chelyabinsk regions. For the past thirteen years, the colonel has been the first assistant and assistant to the renowned designer:
“I first heard about the designer when I served in Germany. In the newspaper "Krasnaya Zvezda" there was a small note about the designer of the AK-47 and AKM assault rifles. And in 1954, in the regiment where I served, the AK-47 entered service. There was very little information about the author, it seems, I didn't even know that he was working in Izhevsk.
I met already here, at Izhmash. Kalashnikov developed and handed over his weapons to us, and we either approved their samples or returned them with comments for revision. Of course, disagreements did happen. Mikhail Timofeevich and his comrades-in-arms zealously defended their projects, while my officers and I basically adhered to "every letter" of the technical specifications. Sometimes they argued all the working week, and on weekends they joked around the lake, enjoying the taste of perch fish soup …
Now our working day with Mikhail Timofeevich begins with an acquaintance with the received letters. They are sent from all over Russia, from the former Soviet republics, from far abroad. There are many inventive, rationalization proposals, often asking for an interview or shooting, namesakes usually ask if they can be relatives of the famous designer, and foreigners are fixated on autographs.
Every letter must be answered without fail. The answers to amateur inventors have to be formulated especially thoroughly and intelligibly. Almost every one of them thinks that they have invented something that has not reached any mind in the world! Nevertheless, Mikhail Timofeevich demands to answer delicately so as not to offend the person. Recently, we ourselves have not been engaged in substantive design work, since there are no technical specifications for the class of Kalashnikov weapons. But we are keenly interested in novelties in this area, we try to keep track of the literature on weapons."
