His name is probably the most famous Russian name in the whole world: Kalashnikov. Presumably, from 60 to 80 million Kalashnikovs - no one knows the exact number - are in circulation. The man who, having created the AK-47 assault rifle, practically became synonymous with mass shooting and murder, according to his own statements, pursued only one goal: to protect his Fatherland. This self-taught person has received many awards. But he did not earn money on his invention, which wrote the history of weapons all over the world.
Mikhail Kalashnikov says about himself that he devoted his whole life to his weapons. From the age of 20, as a young man, he thought of only one thing: to create the best weapon for the defense of the Fatherland and to constantly modernize it. Moreover, the future weapon designer, already in his youth, learned the darkest sides of the history of his homeland in his own skin. Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov was born in 1919 into the family of a poor peasant in Kurye, a village located in the southern Russian region of Altai. Only 8 of 18 children survived in his family. During Stalin's forced collectivization, the family was deported to Siberia. Mikhail was then only 11 years old. At the age of 16, he graduated from high school and went to study as a railway technician. In 1938, Kalashnikov was drafted into the army, where he was a tank driver.
When the Germans attacked the Soviet Union, Mikhail Kalashnikov went to the front, where he was seriously wounded in the battle of Bryansk in 1941. If not for the war, Kalashnikov's technical abilities might have gone in a different direction. But now his decision was firm: "I wanted to create a weapon to defeat the Nazis." While still in the military hospital, the wounded man drew the first sketches in a notebook. His invention followed not so much a little scientific knowledge as his own ideas. Kalashnikov is not an engineer, he never studied at the university. “I'm a born inventor,” he says of himself. His wife drew the details for the prototype only after he had made them in his workshop. And in 1947, the time came: the Kalashnikov assault rifle was approved by the top officials of the state and went into series - an easy-to-use weapon, "Kalashnikov assault rifle", abbreviated AK-47.
The AK-47 overshadowed all other weapons that were available until now. The power of this weapon lies not in abstruse technique, but in simplicity and reliability. Although it weighed 5 kg and was heavier than other machines, it had a large margin of safety. The parts were not in a block, but assembled separately at the top of the weapon, which made it less prone to breakage. It doesn't matter whether the soldiers crawled with him through dust, mud or water - the AK-47 was always ready for battle, both in the conditions of the Russian winter, and in the Sahara, and in the jungle. But the weapon made perfect for the conditions of war the ability to switch from single shots to queues. Already in 1949, Stalin awarded Kalashnikov with the Stalin Prize, and then there were: three Orders of Lenin, two awards of the Hero of Socialist Labor and, finally, even the title of Doctor of Technical Sciences. But Kalashnikov did not see the money for his invention, because it did not even occur to the designer to patent it.
For many decades, Kalashnikov, as a bearer of secrets, lived closed in the farthest corner of the Urals and improved his weapons at the Izhevsk Arms Plant. At first, the Russians managed to keep the AK-47 secret, but then it broke records for the export of weapons and eventually became an instrument of terrorism. In Vietnam, the Vietcong with an AK-47 fought against American soldiers. African Mozambique, as a symbol of the struggle for independence, placed a drawing of a weapon on the national flag. Even in the United States, this machine is very common, especially among drug dealers and gangsters. Almost half of the armies of the world have AK in their arsenals, in addition, it is the favorite weapon of separatists, militias and armed gangs. Kalashnikov himself sadly says that it is his weapon that brings so many troubles around the world: "This weapon lives its own life, completely independently of my will." In his opinion, it is not his duty, but the business of politicians - to take responsibility for everything that happened. And his wish: "I hope that in the memory of people I will remain a person who invented weapons to defend their Fatherland, and not for terror."
