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AK47 assault rifle inventor Kalashnikov dies at 94 | |
(35 minutes later) | |
The inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died aged 94, Russian officials say. | |
The automatic rifle he designed became one of the world's most familiar and widely used weapons. | The automatic rifle he designed became one of the world's most familiar and widely used weapons. |
Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain. | Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain. |
Although honoured by the state, Kalashnikov made little money from his gun. He once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mower. | Although honoured by the state, Kalashnikov made little money from his gun. He once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mower. |
Kalashnikov was admitted to hospital with internal bleeding in November. | |
He died on Monday in Izhevsk, Udmurtia, where he lived, an official there said. | |
Matching the Germans | |
Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov was born on 10 November 1919 in western Siberia, one of 18 children. | |
He was called up by the Red Army in 1938, and his design skills were used to improve the effectiveness of weapons and equipment used by Soviet tank regiments. | |
He designed the machine gun after being asked by a fellow soldier why the Russians could not come up with a gun that would match the ones used by the Germans. | |
Work on the AK47 was completed in 1947, and two years later the gun was adopted by the Soviet army. | |
Kalashnikov continued working into his late 80s as chief designer at the Izhevsk firm that first built the AK-47. | |
He received many state honours, including the Order of Lenin and the Hero of Socialist Labour. | |
Kalashnikov refused to accept responsibility for the many people killed by his weapon, blaming the policies of other countries that acquired it. | |
However, pride in his invention was tempered with sadness at its use by criminals and child soldiers. | |
"It is painful for me to see when criminal elements of all kinds fire from my weapon," Kalashnikov said in 2008. |