In Russia, a top gun still soldiering on
Inventor makes no apologies for AK-47's history
IZHEVSK, Russia -- The first snow of the season was pelting his country cottage -- it was too cold and wet outside for hunting -- so the dapper general had retreated to the warmth of his kitchen. On the table was a wheel of Camembert, some dark bread and sliced pears, and a bottle of Armenian brandy. He swirled some brandy in a snifter and tried to explain all the blood and tears of the past half-century.
"A lot of people ask me how I sleep because of all the people who've been killed with my guns," said Mikhail Kalashnikov, 84, the designer of the renowned AK-47 assault rifle.
His light, inexpensive, virtually indestructible guns -- "They're like my children," he said -- have long been the weapons of choice for communist armies from Vietnam and China to Angola and Cuba. They also have been used by all manner of terrorists, freedom fighters, guerrillas, and gangsters.
The Kalashnikov has been the primary weapon, often for both sides, in most of the 40-odd wars of the past decade. Military historians say there are 100 million AK's at loose in the world.
"But it's not the designer's fault or the weapon's fault when terrible things happen -- it's the politicians," said Kalashnikov, a former major general. "It's because the politicians are unable to reach peaceful agreements. I must say I sleep quite soundly."
But what does he think about the ruthless Russian Mafiosi who also use his AK's? What about the Chechen terrorists, the Taliban holy warriors, the drug-addled boy soldiers of Liberia and Sierra Leone?
"I'd much rather have invented a machine to make life easier for farmers and peasants, something like a lawn mower," Kalashnikov said. "But like it or not, I have to live with it, like a shell fragment in one's body."
During the Vietnam War, many American soldiers openly admired the enemy's lighter guns. The weapons almost never jammed, even in wet, muddy, or sandy conditions. They were easy to carry, clean, and shoot.
"The AK is in some way `the equalizer,' a tag attached to various firearms in the Wild West," said Max Boot, author of "The Savage Wars of Peace." "It puts a lot of firepower into the hands of just about anyone, and thus it makes life much more difficult for conventional armies."
For all the gun's global success, the Russian military thinks it finally has found a replacement for the Kalashnikov, a new assault rifle for the 21st century. It is called the AN-94, nicknamed the Nikonov, after its designer.
"It's a completely new rifle," said Maxim Pyadushkin, a Russian military specialist and author of a new small-arms survey called "Beyond the Kalashnikov."
"There's less recoil, so it's much more accurate. The Kalashnikov era is about to be over."
Not so fast. The Russian military has been field-testing the Nikonov, and reviews from paratroopers and commandos have been mixed. Also, because the Russian Army is largely broke and cannot afford 300,000 new guns, the Kalashnikov could be around for at least another generation.
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov is a snub-nosed pistol of a gentleman, with hair so silver it looks nickel-plated. Six decades of test firings have left him half-deaf, but he has a ready, almost boyish smile and a handshake that is just right. The long-widowed general keeps a modest apartment on Soviet Street in downtown Izhevsk, a drab industrial city in central Russia, and has a tidy lakeside cottage just outside town.
He was eager to show a visitor his latest inventions around the cottage -- a new kind of hidden lock for his tool shed, a simple but deadly contraption for killing moles in his garden, a collapsible canvas boat, a portable grill he takes on fishing trips, and a new bower for the hedgehogs. "I really worry about the hedgehogs in the winter," he said.
Izhevsk has long been the bower of small-arms making in Russia, and the Soviet emphasis on secrecy kept the city closed to outsiders until 10 years ago. Even now, foreigners asking for a look at the decrepit old factory are turned away as trespassers, spies, or both.
Kalashnikov still heads the team of small-arms designers at the Izhmash weapons complex, although the state-owned factory makes few military weapons these days. In the harsh economic reality of the post-Soviet world, the plant is trying to finance itself by making hunting rifles, burglar alarms, and a tinny $3,000 car called the Oda.
Few AK-47s actually were made. The original gun -- the name is a contraction of Automatic Kalashnikov 1947 -- was designed that year and went into production in '49. It was soon tweaked and became the AKM. The M stands for "modernized," and most of the guns in use around the world today are AKMs.
Subsequent modifications have been made, and the current AK 100 series can carry grenade launchers and night sights. And in a nod to real commerce and realpolitik, the AK-101 has been designed to fire the 5.56mm NATO cartridge.
Kalashnikov's relations with the Izhmash managers have become tense and strained in recent months. The managers refuse to manufacture a new hunting rifle he has designed and are unhappy about his family's demands for some financial compensation for his years of service.
The company owns the patent on the Kalashnikov designs, and its legendary designer -- a two-time Hero of Socialist Labor and a six-term member of the Supreme Soviet -- has never received one ruble in royalties. "Back then nobody ever thought about royalties," Kalashnikov said with a shrug. "All the countries in the Warsaw Pact got our technology and designs for free."
The Soviet military machine gave his gun designs to the Vietnamese, Chinese, Cubans, Bulgarians -- every empty-handed sibling in the communist brotherhood. Guerrilla leaders in Mozambique put a profile of the Kalashnikov on the national flag when they came to power. Many rebel fighters paid homage by naming their firstborn sons Kalash. "The Kalashnikov was used as a political instrument -- to gain influence or encourage insurgents the Soviet Union liked," Pyadushkin said. "Nobody paid any attention to money, royalties, or intellectual property rights. Now, of course, things are completely different."
Izhmash is trying, with little success, to force more than a dozen countries to pay royalties for producing its Kalashnikovs and Dragunov sniper rifles. Meanwhile, the old general still draws a paycheck.
