Kalashnikov designed a weapon that became synonymous with killing on a sometimes indiscriminate scale, but was seen in the Soviet Union as a national hero and symbol of Moscow's proud military past.Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of iconic AK-47 automatic rifle, dead at 94.
He was admitted to hospital last month with internal bleeding, and died on Monday (local time) according to a spokesman for the central Russian Udmurtia region. No cause of death was given.
In 2009 he was awarded the Hero of Russia gold star medal for creating what was described as "the national brand every Russian is proud of".
The AK-47: A global killing machine
- The Kalashnikov is officially in service in 55 countries.
- Several national emblems feature the rifle, and some boys in developing nations have been named Kalash after it.
- In 1973, Chile's communist president Salvador Allende died holding an AK-47 - a gift from Soviet-backed Cuban leader Fidel Castro - in a coup staged by pro-US general Augusto Pinochet.
- Thirty years later, invading US troops found a gold-plated Kalashnikov reportedly given to Saddam Hussein's son Uday at one of the Iraqi leader's palaces in Baghdad.
- Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader killed in 2011, posed with a Kalashnikov in videotaped diatribes against the West.
- Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, Liberian gangs, Somali hijackers and South American guerrillas all seem to admire the rifle that enthusiasts say continues to work in dust, sand and swampland.
Kalashnikov had said he never intended for the rifle to become the preferred weapon in conflicts around the world.
He said it was politicians that killed people, not his rifle, and that it saddened him to see the firearm fall into the hands of criminals and child soldiers.
"I created a weapon to defend the fatherland's borders. It's not my fault that it was sometimes used where it shouldn't have been. This is the fault of politicians," he said during an award ceremony at the Kremlin to mark his 90th birthday.
AK-47's name stands for "Kalashnikov's Automatic" and the year it was designed, 1947. Also called the "Kalashnikov", the rifle and its variants are the weapons of choice for dozens of armies and guerrilla groups around the world.
More than 100 million Kalashnikov rifles, which rarely jam even in adverse conditions, have been sold worldwide and they are wielded by fighters in such far-flung conflict zones as Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
But their inventor, a World War II veteran, has barely profited financially from them and lived modestly in Izhevsk, an industrial town 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) east of Moscow.
Kalshnikov once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mower.
The Izmash factory that was the home manufacturer of the weapon in Udmurtia has now fallen on hard times after a collapse in orders following the fall of the USSR, a fact that prompted Kalashnikov to make a personal appeal to president Vladimir Putin.
Design inspiration came in hospital after WWII wounding
Born in a Siberian village as the 17th child of his family on November 10, 1919, Kalashnikov had a tragic childhood during which his father was deported under Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1930.
Wounded during combat in 1941, Kalashnikov designed his rifle in 1947, driven by Soviet defeats in the early years of World War II at the hands of better-armed German soldiers.
In October 1941 in fierce battles around Bryansk he was heavily wounded and shell-shocked.
According to his official Izmash biography, Kalashnikov first conceived of the weapon while recovering in hospital.
The rifle quickly became prized for its sturdy reliability in difficult field conditions and Kalashnikov was honoured with the Soviet Union's top awards including the Lenin and the Stalin prizes.
Yet the design was never patented internationally and Izmash always complained that its potential income from the weapon was hit badly by the "pirated" versions of the designs made abroad.
The 205-year-old Izmash plant remains one of the main producers of Russian weapons and is treasured as a national icon.
But Izmash has also suffered from dwindling demand and a failure to make up for this with foreign orders - a problem plaguing many specialised post-Soviet industries.
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