Posted on 11/11/2004 6:43:41 AM PST by Tailgunner Joe
IZHEVSK, Russia, Nov. 10 - Russia's most famous general arrived promptly at 10 a.m. The doors to the ceremonial chamber of a presidential palace swung open, and there he stood. He wore a green dress uniform with gold epaulets. Medals lined his chest.
Everyone in the chamber stood. Mikhail T. Kalashnikov, the creator of the world's most widely distributed firearm, turned 85 on Wednesday, and here, in the once secretive Soviet city in the western Ural Mountains where he spent decades helping to refine and mass produce his product line, there was an extended pause to reflect.
In this aging man, the city seemed to say, is a glimpse of what we once were.
Izhevsk is Kalashnikov country, and the heart of Russia's gun culture. Deep within the country's vast forests of pine and white birch, in theory beyond the reach of any invading foe, it has been an arms complex since days of yore, having once produced rifles for the czars. During World War II its laborers worked around the clock, helping to halt the advancing Nazis, and then turn them back.
(One weapons executive remarked here this week that at peak production in World War II, the city's plants churned out 12,000 rifles a day, consuming 50 tons of steel every 24 hours.)
Then came the automatic Kalashnikov, the most prolific of all. First mass produced here in 1949, it was a weapon that gradually overtook the world, giving firepower first to socialists and the international revolutionaries they supported, and later to almost anyone who sought an inexpensive and reliable gun. All the while it kept generations of Soviet laborers housed, clothed and fed.
That was then. Izhevsk today is a city of creeping poverty, cramped quarters and worry.
The post-Soviet era has not been kind to isolated places manufacturing old products, and for the several hundred thousand people who live here, mostly in slowly crumbling Soviet housing towers, wages are low (typically about $250 a month), pensions are lower and services are dwindling. There is scant hope that many of Izhevsk's great factories will rumble at full capacity anytime soon.
Enter Mikhail Kalashnikov, embodiment of better times.
General Kalashnikov's weapons - automatic rifles with distinctive banana-shaped clips and reliability in combat conditions that no other automatic has ever matched - were Izhevsk's last great success.
It is an idiosyncratic form of pride: in Russia, stung by political and military failures and the decline of stature that accompanied them, wearied by the upheavals of remaking itself after state socialism's collapse, the automatic Kalashnikov carries a special meaning. It is a product that actually works.
The birthday celebration for General Kalashnikov, who at 85 seems as durable as his weapon himself, offered a chance to feel nostalgia's warm glow.
"It is the story of our city, it is the story of our republic, it is the story of our country," said Viktor V. Balakin, Izhevsk's mayor, as he gave one of the countless testimonials today, and showered General Kalashnikov with bouquets and gifts.
The story that surrounds General Kalashnikov reads like Soviet legend, the tale of the archetypical proletarian man. He was the uneducated son of peasants who became a sergeant assigned to a tank, was injured in World War II in battle against the Nazis and then labored through countless nights - first in his hospital bed, later in secret institutes - to create weapons for the masses.
In 1947, one of his prototypes won a state competition and was selected for mass production. It was given a mundane designation: AK-47, an abbreviation for "automatic by Kalashnikov," followed by the year of its selection. The abbreviation would in time enter martial lexicon.
Like the city he helped put on the map, General Kalashnikov still flashes fondness for much of the socialist ideal. As he worked the crowd this week, he used the word tovarishch, or "comrade," not with the bitter irony of some post-Soviet Russians but with casual sincerity.
He wore a medal bearing Lenin's intense, jaw-forward gaze. He spoke of the value of labor, not just to state but to self. "Work - and only work - can bring you to a high position," he said.
By then celebrations had been rolling for almost a week.
On Nov. 4, a museum was opened in the general's honor, featuring displays of his weapons and multimedia presentations of their creation, manufacture and spread throughout the world. One video reel shows, in quick succession, a young Fidel Castro admiring a Kalashnikov while reclining in a jeep, a young Yasir Arafat with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder and Vietnamese guerrillas, younger still, using Kalashnikovs to down an American plane.
The general's latest memoir, written with Elena Kalashnikova, one of his daughters, was released this week. A scientific and technical conference was held, as were dinners and banquets and uncountable toasts.
Officially, all of this was dedicated to the general and the boost he gave to his city and nation. Broader themes - how the Kalashnikov ran away from its creator to become a symbol not just of Russian success, but of crime, terror and jihad, how it is carried by Osama bin Laden and Shamil Basayev, Russia's most wanted man and the architect of the school siege in Beslan - largely passed without comment.
But if most everyone else steered clear of such party-dampening talk, on Wednesday, in the presidential chamber, the general did not. Sitting beside Aleksandr Volkov, the president of the Udmurt Republic, he said his weapon "was created to defend the fatherland,'' adding, "It is a pity it was used in other inadmissible conflicts."
He was more direct on state television, which dedicated a segment Wednesday to the general pickling cucumbers, at which he noted that these days he spends much of his time writing. "A book," he said, "is now more important than a weapon."
Any time a firearms-related thread is created on FreeRepublic, please be sure to add the "banglist" keyword to it so that interested FReepers don't miss it.
Let Freedom Ring,
Cheers. You've got to admit, that's a pretty good weapon there. Well done.
--true enough. I am amused,however at "banana shaped clips"--sure don't look like any banana I ever saw---
The neat, and somewhat ironic, thing about all of this is the Kalashnikov design is so fundamenally good that the Russians have adapted it to a host of semi-civilian firearms, ioncluding shotguns, and are selling them by the thousands here in the U.S. I own one of the rifles, a VEPR II in 7.62 x 39 mm, the standard Russian caliber. U.S. sales of their Kalashnikov-based guns just might save the livelihoods of many of these Russians.
Joe;
How do you add a keyword after an article has already been posted?
Once upon a time, we could add a post to the banglist by simply addressing it, but that doesn't work anymore.
Kalashniklov: The preferred rifle of LOSERS worldwide!
Gen. Kalashnikov is also a member of the NRA.
As I say about my Russian-born wife, "She is as American as an AK-47". Where else can common civilians without connections legally own AKs? Americans of the shop clerk and truck driving class can afford them and buy them. THAT is power to the people!!! And we have a lower incidence of home invasions than England....Surprise Surprise !
With the expiration of the Fascist "assault weapons" ban, maybe we'll get some good imports of semi-auto AKs from Russia as well as China. I know that the vast majority of pre-bans were from China but maybe this time Russia will be set to compete.
I would not call the North Vietnamese and Afghan Mujhadeen losers. They won.
I would not call the North Vietnamese and Afghan Mujhadeen losers. They won.
A hearty "Nogaya Lieta!" ("Many Years!") to General Kalashnikov.
As for this rifle supposedly being the one preferred by "losers," ask just about anyone who has seen battle whether, if the choice was between the M-16 and the AK-47, he'd prefer the former to the latter.
Nevski
By the way, despite his repeated denials, I think Kalashnikov probably did see captured examples of the Nazi-era Sturmgewehr rifles to design the AK-47.
Well, he has the right idea about work...now if only we could get some of our fellow countrymen to listen to that quote.
"Kalashniklov: The preferred rifle of LOSERS worldwide!"
I hate commies, but I sure love my Kalishnikov! What a magnificent design. Simple, reliable, lethal.
Does your high minded statement include all of our allies who use them too?
Mnogie. You're right, I got the privalge of cross training on the AK-74 and on the G-36. Drop the G and M-16, take the AK any day.
BTTT
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.