Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 and over 150 models of other small weapons, was pronounced dead today at the age of 94. He had been suffering from unspecified health problems and was admitted to a hospital about a month ago. He died in his home city of Izhevsk near the Ural Mountains in Russia. The Russian state agency news did not specify a cause of death.
Kalashnikov was made famous by his most well known gun, the AK-47, but his impact on both Mother Russia as well as the rest of the global community runs much deeper than just that. Kalashnikov was in his 20s when he first started designing his now world famous AK-47, motivated to create a more efficient and durable gun for Russian soldiers to combat the superior automatic guns of the Nazi German forces. After his tank was hit by a Nazi shell in 1941 during the Battle of Bryansk, Kalashnikov was admitted to a hospital to treat his wounds. While in the hospital, Kalashnikov was moved to start creating a gun to give Russian troops an automatic weapon to combat the Nazis. Five years later, the AK-47 was born, and two years after that, in 1949, it was accepted into service and became the standard issue assault rifle for the Soviet Army.
By 2009, over 100 million of his AK-47 assault rifles were in use worldwide, half of them being counterfeit. The AK-47 has found its way into many foreign hands including guerilla soldiers, terrorists, and soldiers of armies across the world. However, the irony behind Kalashnikov’s invention of the AK-47 is that he didn’t even want to be a gun designer in the first place. “I’m proud of my invention, but I’m sad that it is used by terrorists,” Kalashnikov once said, “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.” He is also noted as saying, “Blame the Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer…I always wanted to construct agriculture machinery.”
Kalashnikov didn’t patent his AK-47 either. Living in Communist Soviet Russia, he was always driven by service to his country rather than money. He never made any direct profit from his invention, but said, “At that time in our country, patenting inventions wasn’t an issue. We worked for a Socialist society, for the good of the people, which I will never regret.” Despite this, Kalashnikov still won numerous awards, medals, and honors over the years for his genius work with weapons and his contributions to Russia working new arms deals and writing books on his life focusing on weaponry and youth education. Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current President, said of Kalashnikov in 2007, “The Kalashnikov rifle is a symbol of the creative genius of our people.”
Kalashnikov was indisputably one of the world’s most notable and influential weapons designers. He created several notable weapons outside of the AK-47 including:
- 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
Even though it is known worldwide that his weapons have caused immeasurable amounts of bloodshed, he remained unperturbed, stating, “I sleep well. It’s the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence.”
Mikhail Kalashnikov spent his latter years working as the Chief Designer for the Izmash Company, the same company that built the very first AK-47. In November of 2009, Kalashnikov was honored as a “Hero of the Russian Federation” and was presented with a medal by then President Dmitry Medvedev who proclaimed that the AK-47 is “the brand every Russian is proud of.” Kalashnikov was undoubtedly a controversial figure on the worldwide stage, but his presence and contributions will undeniably be missed.
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