Kalashnikov Michael. Biography of the designer of small arms

Biography Kalashnikov Michael Timofeevich personifies a certain image of the Soviet dream. His life path is the road of a man who, being one of the children of a large family, at the price of his labor and design talent created a name for himself in his own country and in the whole world.

Kalashnikov Michael. Biography. Childhood and youth

Mikhail Timofeevich became the seventeenth child in the family of a peasant from a small village in the Altai Territory. It happened in November 1919. Subsequently, only eight survived from all the children. When Misha was only ten years old, his family was recognized by the Soviet authorities as kulak and sent to an even deaf village in the Tomsk region. From an early age, the future designer was fond of engineering, geometry, physics. Much succeeded in this on the school bench. Already in adolescence, his first acquaintance with the weapon takes place, when he personally disassembles an American-made "Browning" pistol.

Kalashnikov Michael. Biography. Army Service

At the end of the school, the young man works for some time at the railway depot, but at nineteen, in 1938, he is called into the ranks of the Red Army. Here he takes an army course of junior commanders and receives the specialty of a tank mechanic driver. His service was held in the Kiev Military District. It was here in the pre-war years that he began to show extraordinary inventive abilities. For example, he developed an inertial counter that counted the number of shots of a tank gun, and the widely used TT gun was also upgraded .

Kalashnikov Michael. Biography. Years of the Great Patriotic War

A young officer of chance happened to be one of those who was destined to be on urgent Service at the very moment of German aggression (and among these children of 1918-1922 birth was subsequently marked the greatest proportion of the dead, since they were the first on behalf of the unready army to restrain the onslaught of Blitzkrieg). In the first months of the war the senior sergeant was a member of the tank division. However, when defending Bryansk in the autumn of 1941, he received heavy wounds and was bruised. But, even staying in the hospital, he found an opportunity to contribute to the liberation of the country. Here he conceived and, being in the rear, embodied the design of a new submachine gun. Unfortunately, although the sample was manufactured, it did not go into service. However, Kalashnikov's undoubted talent was sufficiently manifested. Since 1942, he served at the Central Research Range of Small Arms under the Main Artillery Directorate. In particular, by 1944 he had developed a self-loading carbine, which later formed the basis for the world-famous automaton.

Kalashnikov Michael. Biography. Postwar years

In 1947, the first version of the Kalashnikov assault rifle appeared, which immediately became the best on the basis of field competitive tests among similar Projects. By 1949, the machine was finally finalized and entered the arsenal of the Soviet Army. Mikhail Kalashnikov, whose biography was an eloquent example of self-giving and working for the good of the Motherland, was deservedly assigned to the Stalin Prize of the first degree. And his offspring in the 1950s and 1970s acquired tremendous popularity around the world, becoming one of the main symbols of the power of the Soviet state. The designer continued to optimize and improve small arms. In particular, the Kalashnikov assault rifle has experienced several serious upgrades for half a century. And its creator was awarded the titles of Hero Sots. Labor (in 1958 and 1976), the Order of Merit for the Fatherland, "Andrew the First-Called" (1999) and many others.