Russia unveils seven-metre statue of AK-47 inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov
Kalashnikov came up with the idea of inventing a new automatic rifle that could work in all conditions after becoming disgruntled by the Soviet weaponry
Russian officials and Orthodox priests on Tuesday unveiled a statue in Moscow of inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov, whose iconic AK-47 assault rifle has claimed countless lives worldwide.
A priest sprinkled holy water on the seven-metre-tall statue of Kalashnikov gripping his deadly creation, which will now loom over motorists from a traffic island in one of the sprawling capital’s central thoroughfares.
Culture minister Vladimir Medinsky praised the inventor and called the rifle – which has been reproduced an estimated 100 million times worldwide – a “cultural brand for Russia”.
Kalashnikov had “the best traits of a Russian: an extraordinary natural gift, simplicity, integrity,” Medinsky said.
Born in a Siberian village in 1919, Mikhail Kalashnikov died in December 2013 in Izhevsk, the capital of the Russian republic of Udmurtia, where he lived.
Kalashnikov came up with the idea of inventing a new automatic rifle that could work in all conditions after becoming disgruntled by the Soviet weaponry as he recovered from an injury during the second world war.
Eventually that would lead to the creation of the AK-47 – short in Russian for Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947 (Kalashnikov Automatic Rifle 1947) – that would become the standard issue for the Soviet Union’s vast armed forces.