I
will post information about the Russian Firearms Designer, Mikhail Kalashnikov
from Wikipedia and other links.
Mikhail Kalashnikov
|
|||
|
|||
Native name
|
Михаил
Тимофеевич Калашников
|
||
Born
|
Mikhail Timofeyevich
Kalashnikov
10 November 1919 Kurya, Altai Krai, Russian SFSR |
||
Died
|
|||
Cause of
death
|
Gastric hemorrhage
|
||
Nationality
|
Russian
|
||
Occupation
|
|
||
Known for
|
Designer of the AK-47 and AK-74
|
||
Religion
|
|||
Spouse(s)
|
Ekaterina Viktorovna Kalashnikova (née
Moiseyeva; ??–77; her death)
|
||
Children
|
|
||
Parent(s)
|
|
||
Awards
|
|
Lieutenant-General Mikhail Timofeyevich
Kalashnikov (Russian: Михаи́л Тимофе́евич Кала́шников; 10 November 1919 – 23 December
2013) was a Russian general, inventor, military engineer, writer and small arms
designer. He is most famous for developing the AK-47 assault
rifle and its improvements, AKM and AK-74, as well as the PK
machine gun.
Kalashnikov
was, according to himself, a self-taught tinkerer who combined innate
mechanical skills with the study of weaponry to design arms that achieved
battlefield ubiquity. Even though Kalashnikov felt sorrow at the weapons'
uncontrolled distribution, he took pride in his inventions and in their
reputation for reliability, emphasizing that his rifle is "a weapon of
defense" and "not a weapon for offense".
Young
Mikhail Kalashnikov
[PHOTO
SOURCE: http://www.biography.com/people/mikhail-kalashnikov-21226419]
|
Young
Mikhail Kalashnikov
|
Early life
Kalashnikov
was born in Kurya, Altai Governorate, Russian
SFSR, now Altai Krai, Russia, to
Aleksandra Frolovna Kalashnikova (née Kaverina) and Timofey Aleksandrovich
Kalashnikov. In 1930, his father and most of his family were deprived of
property and deported to the village of Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya, Tomsk
Oblast. In his youth, Mikhail suffered from various illnesses and was on
the verge of death at age six. He was attracted to all kinds of machinery, but
also wrote poetry, dreaming of becoming a poet. He went on to write six books
and continued to write poetry all of his life. Kalashnikov's parents were
peasants, but, after deportation to Tomsk Oblast, had to combine farming with
hunting, and thus Mikhail frequently used his father's rifle in his teens.
Kalashnikov continued hunting into his 90s.
After
completing seventh grade, Mikhail, with his stepfather's permission, left his
family and returned to Kurya, hitchhiking for nearly 1,000 km. In Kurya he
found a job in mechanics at a tractor station and developed a passion for
weaponry. In 1938, he was conscripted into the Red Army.
Because of his small size and engineering skills he was assigned as a tank
mechanic, and later became a tank commander. While training, he made his first
inventions, which concerned not only tanks, but also small weapons, and was personally
awarded a wrist watch by Georgy Zhukov. Kalashnikov served on the T-34s of the 24th Tank
Regiment, 108th Tank Division
stationed in Stryi
before the regiment retreated after the Battle of Brody in June 1941. He was wounded
in combat in the Battle of Bryansk in October 1941 and
hospitalised until April 1942. While in the hospital, he overheard some fellow
soldiers complaining about the Soviet rifles of the time.
Seeing
the drawbacks of the standard infantry weapons at the time, he decided to
construct a new rifle for the Soviet military. During this time Kalashnikov
began designing a submachine gun. Although his first submachine gun
design was not accepted into service, his talent as a designer was noticed.
From 1942 onwards Kalashnikov was assigned to the Central
Scientific-developmental Firing Range for Rifle Firearms of the Chief Artillery
Directorate of the Red Army.
In
1944, he designed a gas-operated carbine for the new 7.62×39mm
cartridge. This weapon, influenced by the M1 Garand
rifle, lost out to the new Simonov carbine which would be
eventually adopted as the SKS; but it became a basis for his entry in an assault rifle
competition in 1946.
His
winning entry, the "Mikhtim" (so named by taking the first letters of
his name and patronymic, Mikhail Timofeyevich) became the prototype for the
development of a family of prototype rifles. This process culminated in 1947,
when he designed the AK-47
(standing for Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947). In 1949, the AK-47
became the standard issue assault rifle of the Soviet
Army and went on to become Kalashnikov's most famous invention. While
developing his first assault rifles, Kalashnikov competed with two much more
experienced weapon designers, Vasily
Degtyaryov and Georgy Shpagin, who both accepted the superiority of
the AK-47. Kalashnikov named Alexandr Zaitsev and Vladimir Deikin as his major
collaborators during those years.
Later career
From
1949, Mikhail Kalashnikov lived and worked in Izhevsk, Udmurtia. He
held a degree of Doctor of Technical Sciences (1971) and was a
member of 16 academies.
Over
the course of his career, he evolved the basic design into a weapons family.
The AKM (Russian: Автомат
Кала́шникова Модернизированный –
Kalashnikov modernized assault rifle) first appeared in 1963, was lighter and
cheaper to manufacture owing to the use of a stamped steel receiver (in place
of the AK-47's milled steel receiver), and contained detail improvements such
as a re-shaped stock and muzzle compensator. From the AKM he developed a squad automatic weapon variant, known as the
RPK (Russian:
Ручной пулемет Кала́шникова –
Kalashnikov light machine gun).
He
also developed the general-purpose PK
machine gun (Russian: Пулемет Кала́шникова – Kalashnikov machine gun),
which used the more powerful 7.62×54R
cartridge of the Mosin–Nagant rifle. It is cartridge belt-fed, not
magazine-fed, as it is intended to provide heavy sustained fire from a tripod
mount, or be used as a light, bipod-mounted weapon. The common characteristics
of all these weapons are simple design, ruggedness and ease of maintenance in
all operating conditions.
Approximately
100 million AK-47 assault rifles had been produced by 2009, and about half of
them are counterfeit, manufactured at a rate of about a million per year. Izhmash, the
official manufacturer of AK-47 in Russia, did not patent the weapon until 1997,
and in 2006 accounted for only 10% of the world's production. Kalashnikov
himself claimed he was always motivated by service to his country rather than
money, and made no direct profit from weapon production. He did however own 30%
of a German company Marken Marketing International (MMI) run by his grandson
Igor. The company revamps trademarks and produces merchandise carrying the
Kalashnikov name, such as vodka, umbrellas and knives. One of the items is a knife named
for the AK-74.
During
a visit to the United States in the early 2000s, Kalashnikov was invited to
tour a Virginia holding site for the forthcoming American Wartime Museum. The
former tanker Kalashnikov became visibly moved at the sight of his old tank in
action, painted with his name in Cyrillic.
On
17 November 2013, Kalashnikov was hospitalized in an Udmurtian medical
facility. He died on 23 December 2013 at a hospital after a prolonged illness.
Death
Kalashnikov
died 23 December 2013, at age 94 in a hospital in Izhevsk, the
capital of Udmurtia
and where he lived, from gastric hemorrhage. In January 2014 a
letter that Kalashnikov wrote six months before his death to the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch
Kirill, was published by the Russian daily newspaper Izvestia.
In the letter he stated that he was suffering "spiritual pain" about
whether he was responsible for the deaths caused by the weapons he created.
Translated from the published letter he states, "My
heartache unbearable same insoluble question: if my rifle deprive people of
life, and therefore I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, ninety-three years old, the son of
a peasant, and Orthodox Christian according to his faith, responsible for the
death of people, let even an enemy?"
The
patriarch wrote back, thanked Kalashnikov, and said that he "was an
example of patriotism and a correct attitude toward the country". Kirill
added about the design responsibility for the deaths by the rifle, "the church has a well-defined position when the weapon
is defense of the Motherland, the Church supports its creators and the
military, which use it."
Family
Kalashnikov's
father, Timofey Aleksandrovich Kalashnikov (1883–1930), was a peasant. He
completed two grades of parochial school and could read and write. In 1901
he married Aleksandra Frolovna Kaverina (1884–1957), who was illiterate
throughout her life. They had 19 children, but only eight survived to adult
age; Kalashnikov was born 17th, and was close to death at age six.
In
1930, the government labeled Timofey Aleksandrovich a kulak, confiscated his
property, and deported him to Siberia, along with most of the family. The
eldest three siblings, daughters Agasha (b. 1905) and Anna and son Victor, were
already married by 1930, and remained in Kuriya. After her husband's death in
1930, Aleksandra Frolovna married Efrem Kosach, a widower who had three
children of his own.
Mikhail
Kalashnikov married twice, the first time to Ekaterina Danilovna Astakhova of
Altai Krai. He married the second time to Ekaterina Viktorovna Moiseyeva
(1921–1977). She was an engineer and did much technical drawing work for her
husband. They had four children: daughters Nelli (b. 1942), Elena (b. 1948) and
Natalya (1953–1983), and a son Victor (b. 1942). Victor also became a prominent
small arms designer.
Weapon designs
During
his career, Kalashnikov designed about 150 models of small weapons. The most
famous of them are:
- AK-47
- AKM
- AK-74 / AKS-74U / AK-74M / AKS-74
- AK-101 / AK-102
- AK-103 / AK-104
- AK-105
- AK-12
- RPK / RPK-74
- PK / PKM / PKP
- Saiga semi-automatic rifle
The Russian Medal of Small Arms Maker
was introduced in 2008 and named after Kalashnikov.
Russian Federation, Ministry of Industry and
Trade. The Breast Badge "MEDAL OF SMALL ARMS MAKER MT Kalashnikov".
27 June 2008. Awarded to employees of enterprises, organizations and
institutions of the military-industrial complex, the central staff of the
Ministry, the Federal Agencies involved with enterprises producing small arms
and ammunition, for 15 years or more and that have made a significant
contribution to the development, creation and production of modern small arms,
parts and ammunition using advanced scientific research in the field of nanotechnology,
improving quality and competitiveness, in promoting to the world market and
that have made a significant contribution to strengthening of our defense
capabilities.
|
Recipients
of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle the First-Called
(the ongoing series, issue IV).
Mikhail Kalashnikov (1919–2013), a Soviet and Russian designer of small arms,
the creator of the AK family of assault rifles.
There depicted the badge of the Order of St. Andrew on the left. The stamp of Russia, 15.00 Rubles, 24 October 2014, PTC Marka Catalogue No 1883. Coated paper. Offset printing, varnish coating. Perforation: comb 12×11½. Size of the stamp: 50×37 mm. Print run: 374,000. |
Awards and tribute
Incorporates information from the corresponding article
in the Russian Wikipedia
- Recipients of the Order of St. Andrew
- Mikhail Kalashnikov was twice named Hero of Socialist Labour. In 1998, he was awarded an Order of Saint Andrew the Protoclete
- On his 90th birthday on 10 November 2009, Kalashnikov was named a "Hero of the Russian Federation" and presented with a medal by President Dmitry Medvedev who lauded him for creating "the brand every Russian is proud of"
- In 2012, Izhevsk State Technical University was named after Kalashnikov
- On November 7, 2014 a statue of Kalashnikov was unveiled at the Russian 102nd Military Base in Gyumri, Armenia. Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan attended the opening ceremony.
Russian Federation
Decorations
- Hero of the Russian Federation (2009)
- Order of St. Andrew (2008)
- Order For Merit to the Fatherland, Second Class (1994)
- Order of Military Merit (Russia) (2004)
Awards
- State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of design (1997)
- Award of the President of the Russian Federation in the field of education (2003)
- All-Russian Literary Prize of Suvorov (2009)
Honorary diplomas
- Diploma of the Government of the Russian Federation (1997, 1999)
Medals
- Jubilee Medal "50 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
- Medal "Symbol of Science" (2007)
- Gold Medal of Zhukov
- Medal "For outstanding contribution to the development of the collection business in Russia"
Acknowledgements
- Gratitude of the President of the Russian Federation (1997, 1999, 2002, 2007)
Soviet
Honours
- Order of Lenin (1958, 1969, 1976)
- Order of the October Revolution (1974)
- Order of the Red Star (1949)
- Order of the Patriotic War, 1st Class (1985)
- Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1957)
- Order of Friendship of Peoples (1982)
Medals
- Medal "Hammer and Sickle" (1958,1976)
- Medal "For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945"
- Medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
- Medal "In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin"
- Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
- Jubilee Medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
- Medal "For Distinction in Guarding the State Border of the USSR"
- Medal "Veteran of Labor" on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
- Jubilee Medal "30 years of the Soviet Army and Navy"
- Jubilee Medal "40 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
- Jubilee Medal "50 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
- Jubilee Medal "60 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
- Jubilee Medal "70 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR"
- Medal "In Commemoration of the 800th anniversary of Moscow"
Awards
- Stalin Prize (1949)
- Lenin Prize (1964)
Foreign decorations
- Order of Honour of Belarus (1999)
- Order of Friendship, First Class (2003)
Other honours
- the home of Mikhail Kalashnikov in the village he set Courier lifetime bronze bust (1980)
- the name of the designer named projected prospect in Izhevsk (1994)
- "Honorary Citizen of the Altai Territory" (1997)
- Ministry of Economy of Russia award – The sign "of small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov" (1997)
- Union of scientific and engineering organizations and the Government of Udmurtia established an award named after Mikhail Kalashnikov (1999)
- Diamond company "Alrosa" extracted 29 December 1995 gem diamonds weighing 50.74 carats given the name "designer Mikhail Kalashnikov" (14.5 x 15, 0h15, 5 mm, quality Stones Black) (1999)
- Mikhail Kalashnikov Cadet School in Votkinsk (2002)
- Award in his name at the School of Weapon Skills of Izhevsk (2002)
- Izhevsk State Cultural Institution "Museum of Mikhail Kalashnikov"
- "Honorary Engineer of Kazakhstan" (Kazakhstan; 2004)
- Gift from President Hugo Chávez, the highest award of the Republic – a copy of the famous sword of Simon Bolivar, which is a relic of Venezuela and the copy is equal to the highest award of the country (2009)
- The name of Mikhail Kalashnikov was given to the military department of the Mining Institute in St. Petersburg (2009)
- Izhevsk State Technical University was awarded the name of Mikhail Kalashnikov (2012)
- German knife company Boker has dedicated a series to him (2013)
Quotes
- "I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists ... I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work — for example a lawn mower."
- "Blame the Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer ... I always wanted to construct agriculture machinery."
- "I created a weapon to defend the borders of my motherland. It's not my fault that it's being used where it shouldn't be. The politicians are more to blame for this."
- "When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, 'All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed' ... So this has been my lifetime motto – I have been creating weapons to defend the borders of my fatherland, to be simple and reliable."
- "I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence."
OTHER
LINKS:
No comments:
Post a Comment