Biography of Mikhail Kalashnikov: brilliant designer. Kalashnikov, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov, Mikhail Timofeevich financial condition

Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov (November 10, 1919, Kurya village, Altai - December 23, 2013) is a Russian designer of small arms. He became famous thanks to the creation of AK.

Childhood and youth

The future designer was born in an ordinary peasant family. He was the 17th child. In 1930, when Mikhail's father was recognized as a kulak, the Kalashnikovs were exiled to the Tomsk region.

Even as a child, young Kalashnikov was interested in technology, exploring the structure of various mechanisms. In addition, he was fond of geometry and physics. It is worth noting that the teachers of the future designer were exiled political settlers, most of whom had a university education. At the end of the 7th grade, Mikhail decided to return to Altai. Already in his native Courier, he begins to get acquainted with the device of the weapon, having personally disassembled the Browning pistol. At the age of 18, Mikhail leaves his native village and moves to Kazakhstan. Here he became an accountant in a railway depot.

History of the constructor

Despite his years, Kalashnikov can easily sketch any detail. Even in the years of creative youth, he could make trial parts with his own hands. At the same time, he always remained self-critical. Perhaps this is the secret of the success of the most famous Russian weapons designer. Consider the main milestones of his professional life.

1938 - Kalashnikov was drafted into the army. Here he becomes a tank driver. Mikhail Kalashnikov served in the 12th tank division, which was located in Stryi (Ukraine). Even then, he showed his design skills by developing a tank gun shot counter, a tank engine life counter, and an adaptation for the TT pistol. With a report on his inventions, Kalashnikov spoke to General Georgy Zhukov. Later, the designer noted that if it were not for the war, he might not have become an inventor.

1941 - Kalashnikov, with the rank of senior sergeant, becomes a tank commander. But soon he was badly wounded. While in the hospital, I decided to create own sample automatic weapons. Making sketches and drawings, Mikhail Timofeevich analyzed his own impressions and opinions of his comrades in arms, as well as information from the books of the local library. The advice of a paratrooper lieutenant, who had worked at a research institute before the start of the war, was especially useful, so he was well acquainted with small arms systems.

In connection with aftercare, Kalashnikov returned to Matai. Here he created his first model of a submachine gun. Then he was sent to Alma-Ata, where a more advanced model was made. Later, this sample was presented to A. Blagonravov (scientist in the field of small arms). The scientist's assessment was negative, however, Blagonravov noted the originality of the development and recommended Kalashnikov for further training. Soon the mentioned submachine gun was presented at the Main Artillery Directorate. Noting it as a fairly successful design, experts still did not recommend accepting this submachine gun for service, explaining this by technological reasons.

1942 - began working at the Central Research Test Site small arms GAU.

1944 - created a sample of a self-loading carbine. This weapon did not go into series, but served as a prototype for the future machine gun.

1945-1947 - development of AK. This machine was immediately adopted.

1948 - a young designer was sent to the Izhevsk Motor Plant to organize the manufacture of the debut batch of "AK". Here, 1.5 thousand automatic machines were created, which successfully passed all the tests. Subsequently, at the specified enterprise, under the leadership of Kalashnikov, more than a dozen samples of automatic small arms were developed.

1950s - AK and AKN assault rifles were created. AK 7.62 mm, AKM, AKMS, AKMSU, AKMN and AKMSN were adopted. The Kalashnikov light machine gun (RPK) was also adopted.

1960s - developed by RPKS, RPK74 and RPKS74. In 1962, the Kalashnikov tank machine gun (PKT) 7.62 mm was adopted, as well as the armored machine gun PKB and PKMB.

1969 - the designer was awarded the rank of colonel.

1970s - production of 5.45 mm weapons began: AK-74, AK74N, AK-74, AKS74, AKS74U, AKS74UN and AKS74UB. The production of RPK74, RPKS74, RPK74M and RPK74N has also been launched. In addition, the first batch of self-loading hunting carbines was manufactured.

1971 - Kalashnikov became a doctor of technical sciences.

1989 - the designer decided to get acquainted with Y. Stoner - the creator of the M16 assault rifle. In America, Kalashnikov was received like a movie star.

1991 - adopted by the AK74M caliber 5.45 mm.

1994 - Mikhail Timofeevich was awarded the rank of major general.

1999 - the designer became a lieutenant general.

Kalashnikov is the only Russian who was simultaneously awarded the title of Hero of Russia and twice the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

As a child, Mikhail dreamed of becoming a poet. His pre-war poems were published in the Red Army newspaper. In addition, he is fond of classical music, regularly attending the days of music of P. I. Tchaikovsky.

During the development of the AK, Kalashnikov met his future wife, the draftsman Ekaterina Moiseeva. The inventor's wife died in 1977. Mikhail Timofeevich has a son, Victor, and two daughters, Elena and Nelly. The third daughter Natalya tragically died in 1983.

In connection with the frequent visits to firing ranges and shooting range, Mikhail Kalashnikov received a hearing impairment, which could not be restored even with the help of modern medicine.

Kalashnikov is an academician of 16 Russian and foreign academies. In addition, he has 35 copyright certificates for inventions.

In 2011, Nikas Safronov noted that in the world Russia is known by 4 symbols: matryoshka, vodka, caviar and Kalashnikov. At the same time, the author of the world famous machine lives quite modestly: on the 3rd floor without an elevator, with a woman caring for him. The named artist also believes that the state sold licenses for the manufacture of AKs for next to nothing.

Kalashnikov continues to be a communist. He notes that thanks to the Communist Party, his generation won the war, built a powerful state, created the best examples technology and paved the way into space. According to the designer, Russia still lives on the Soviet legacy. He believes that even today the Russian communists continue to be a creative force.

In 1980, a lifetime bronze bust was installed for Kalashnikov in the village of Kurye. There is also a monument in Izhevsk. In the last city there is a "Museum of M. T. Kalashnikov".

The constructor is named after:

• avenue in Izhevsk;
• award of the Ministry of Economy of Russia;
• Prize of the Union of Scientific and Engineering Organizations;
• diamond weighing 50.74 carats, found in 1995;
• cadet school of Votkinsk;
• audience at military department Mining Institute of St. Petersburg;
• Izhevsk State Technical University.

In 2009, President Hugo Chavez awarded Kalashnikov the highest award of Venezuela (a copy of Simon Bolivar's sword).

The main dates of the life and work of Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov

1919, November 10 - was born in the village of Kurya, Kurya district (Barnaul district) of the Altai Territory (Altai province) in the family of a peasant Timofey Alexandrovich and his wife Alexandra Frolovna.

1930 - Resettlement of the family in the course of continuous collectivization and dispossession to the village of Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya, Bakcharsky District, Tomsk Region.

December - father's death.

1933, spring - graduated from four classes elementary school in the village of Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya.

Summer - after finishing seven classes in the village of Voronikha, he escapes from the place of exile to his homeland.

1937, autumn - together with comrade Gavriil Bondarenko, he goes to Kazakhstan, to the Matai railway station in the Taldy-Kurgan region.

1937-1938 - worked as an accountant, technical secretary of the political department of the 3rd branch of the Turkestan-Siberian railway. Joined the Komsomol.

1938, August - called up by the Burlyu-Tobinsky RVC for real military service. He began training at the tank school of the 12th tank division of the 8th mechanized corps of the 26th army of the Kyiv Special Military District (the city of Stryi, Lviv region).

1938-1941, June - study at a tank school, service in a training tank regiment, specializing in "tank driver". Assigned military rank"sergeant".

1940, April 5 - several poems by cadet Kalashnikov are published in the district newspaper "Red Army" on the page "Red Army Creativity"; took part in a rally of young army writers in Kyiv.

Autumn - sent to Leningrad to plant No. 174 named after K. E. Voroshilov for laboratory testing and launching a combined tank engine life meter into pilot production.

September - summoned to the district commander G.K. Zhukov as the winner of the technical competition for the development of a combined tank engine life meter. Sent to debug the device in the workshops of the Kyiv Tank Technical School.

October - the second meeting with G.K. Zhukov and the awarding of personalized watches.

1940 -1941 - participation in inventive and rationalization work: designed a special device for firing a TT pistol from a tank through a special slot; increased the capacity of the TT pistol magazine; created an inertial device for recording the actual number of shots fired from a tank gun; designed a combined tank engine life meter.

1941, July - 1942, August - participated in the battles against the Nazi invaders in the Bryansk direction as a commander of the T-34 tank. The military rank "senior sergeant" was conferred.

August 31 - received a blind shrapnel wound in the area of ​​​​the left shoulder joint, was shell-shocked, along with other commanders and Red Army soldiers, he left the encirclement.

September - October - was on treatment in the 1133rd evacuation hospital in the city of Yelets, Oryol region. During treatment, he made the first primitive drawing of a submachine gun.

1942, January - July - amateur design work: the manufacture of a submachine gun in the workshops of the Matai station. Refinement of the sample at the Faculty of Artillery and Small Arms of the Moscow Aviation Institute named after Ordzhonikidze evacuated to Alma-Ata. Production of the second sample of the PPK - the Kalashnikov submachine gun and its presentation at the headquarters of the Central Asian Military District (CABO).

1942, August - delivery prototype PPK No. 2 for improvement at the Central Research Range for Small Arms and Mortar Weapons (TsNIPSMVO). Acquaintance with the designer-gunsmith S. G. Simonov.

March 12 - received an order from the department to arrive at the CABO headquarters for the manufacture of a prototype light machine gun chambered for a 7.62-mm rifle cartridge.

1944, March - April - business trip to TsNIPSMVO to test a light machine gun developed at CABO, negative conclusion of the competition commission.

Spring - summer - participation in the finalization of the new 7.62-mm machine gun of the Goryunov system, model 1943.
October - seconded to the Department of Invention and Rationalization of the People's Commissariat of Defense. Development of a self-loading carbine for a new cartridge of the 1943 model.

1944, November - 1949, September - designer of the department of inventions of the Ministry of Defense of the USSR.

1946 - participation in the competition of the GAU Small Arms Department for the design of an assault rifle chambered for the 1943 model according to new tactical and technical requirements.

Acquaintance with his future wife - the draftsman of TsNIPSMVO Ekaterina Viktorovna Moiseeva.

Autumn - a business trip to Kovrov to the weapons and machine gun factory to refine the sample of the machine gun at the second stage of the competition.

1947, June 30 - July 12 - participation of AK-46 samples in comparative tests; the birth of daughter Elena.

1947, December 27 - 1948, January 11 - participation in the final stage of testing with the KBP-580 product (later - AK-47).

1948, January 10 - decision of the Scientific and Technical Council of the TsNIPSMVO GAU of the Armed Forces on the advisability of manufacturing a series and subsequent military tests of a 7.62-mm Kalashnikov assault rifle chambered for the 1943 model.

March - sent to Izhevsk.

September - participation in military tests of the AK-47 under the leadership of the Chief Marshal of Artillery N. N. Voronov.

1949, February - dismissal from the ranks of the Soviet army, moving to a permanent place of residence with his family in Izhevsk.

March - the beginning of mass production of the AK-47 in the city of Izhevsk at the machine-building plant.

April 8 - for the development of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, he was awarded the title of laureate of the Stalin Prize of the 1st degree.

June 18 - By a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, a 7.62-mm Kalashnikov assault rifle (AK) and a 7.62-mm Kalashnikov assault rifle with a folding butt (AKS) were adopted by the Soviet army.

1949, September - 1957 - designer, leading design engineer of the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant.

1950-1954 - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 3rd convocation.

1953 - birth of daughter Natalia.

1954, June - beginning unification of models of small arms in the Soviet army and the armies of the Warsaw Pact (replacement of the SKS carbine with an AK assault rifle).

1955-1958 - participation of the group of M. T. Kalashnikov in the competition for the unification of small arms.

1957-1967 - head of the design bureau, head of the sector, design engineer of the 1st category, head of the bureau of the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant.

1958, June 20 - for the creation of a unified submachine gun complex, Kalashnikov is awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.

1959, April 8 - by a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the following were adopted by the Soviet army: a 7.62-mm modernized Kalashnikov assault rifle - AKM (folding version of AKMS), 7.62-mm RPK and RPKS light machine guns.

1961, October 20 - by a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, a single PK machine gun (single infantry) was adopted by the Soviet Army. Subsequently, PKT (tank) and PKB (armored personnel carrier) were created on its basis.

April 21, 1964 - M. T. Kalashnikov and his assistants A. D. Kryakushin and V. V. Krupin were awarded the Lenin Prize for the creation of the second unified system of small arms for a rifle cartridge (a complex of unified PK and PKT machine guns).

1966-1988 - Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 7th-11th convocations.

1966 - Kalashnikov's design team was entrusted with the creation of a new weapons complex chambered for a reduced caliber 5.45x39 mm (low-pulse) cartridge.

1967-1979 - Deputy chief designer of the production association "Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant".

March 22, 1973 - by decision of the Military Technical Committee of the USSR Ministry of Defense, the AK-74 5.45-mm caliber was recommended to be taken as the basis for a new unified small arms complex.

January 18, 1974 - AK-74 was put into service. The unified complex included AK-74, AK-74 (with a grenade launcher), AK-74N (with a night vision sight), a shortened AKS-74, machine guns RPK-74, RPK-74N, RPK-74N2 (with night vision sights) ), RPKS-74 (with folding stock); on the basis of the AKM assault rifle, a self-loading hunting carbine "Saiga" was created.

1977 - wife Ekaterina Viktorovna died.

1979 - A shortened 5.45-mm AKS-74U assault rifle and its modifications with a night sight were put into service and put into production at the Tula Arms Plant.

1979-2000- chief designer, head of the design bureau for small arms at the Izhmash Production Association.

October - awarded the title of honorary citizen of the village of Kurya, Altai Territory.

1983 - daughter Natalya died in a car accident.

1990, May 15-23 - first trip to the USA at the invitation of the Smithsonian Institution. Meeting with the creator of the American rifle M 16 Eugene Stoner.

1991 - 5.45-mm AK-74M assault rifle (modernized) with a plastic folding butt and a side base for optical and night sights was adopted.

1992 - adoption of the 5.45 mm RPK-74M light machine gun. Two smooth-bore models of the Saiga carbine chambered for 7.62x33 mm were put into production.

1993 - the fourth generation of Kalashnikov weapons ("hundredth series") was created: AK-101 and its shortened version AK-102 caliber 5.56x45 mm NATO; AK-103 and AK-104 caliber 7.62x39 mm; AK-105 - a shortened version of the AK-74M 5.45 mm (instead of the AKS-74U); AK-107 and AK-108.

1994 - on the basis of the design of the light machine gun RP K-74, a self-loading hunting carbine "Vepr" was developed.

February - elected president of the Union of Russian gunsmiths.

February 1995 - February 25, 2002 - consultant CEO Federal State Unitary Enterprise GK Rosvooruzhenie, Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rosoboronexport.

1997, June 12 - laid in the city of Izhevsk a capsule with an appeal to posterity on the site for the construction of the Museum of M. T. Kalashnikov.
1998, January 19 - admitted to the Writers' Union of Russia.

2000- present time is chief designer - head of the design bureau for small arms of JSC "Concern" Izhmash "".

2001, June - visited Libya. Negotiations on the creation on the basis of AK-103 and AK-104 Libyan machine guns of 7.62-mm caliber.

November - in Kyiv, the main prize "Goddess of Fortune" was awarded by the international open Rating of popularity and quality of goods.

2003 - awarded the Order of Friendship (Dostyk) I degree (Republic of Kazakhstan).

2004, November 4 - opening in Izhevsk of the state cultural institution "Museum of M. T. Kalashnikov".

May 17, 2005 - FSUE "Rosoboronexport" signed a contract with the Ministry of Defense for the supply of AK-103 assault rifles to Venezuela and the transfer of a license for their production in Venezuela.

November 4 - a unique collection of Kalashnikov assault rifles and machine guns was transferred to the Armory Chamber of the Kremlin Museums.

2006, April 19 - on behalf of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Rosoboronexport" Kalashnikov signed a contract for the supply of a batch of machine guns of the "hundredth" series for Cuba.

Summer - Kalashnikov's address to the participants of the UN conference in New York, dedicated to the implementation of the Program of Action to prevent, counter and eradicate the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.

October 31 - laid a capsule with an appeal to posterity at the border outpost "Nalychevo" of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

2007, July 5 - took part in International Conference"60 years at the firing line", dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the AK-47 assault rifle and the 200th anniversary of the Izhevsk weapons school.

April 4, 2008 - during a business trip to Jordan for the International Exhibition "SOFEKS-2008" he experienced a clinical death. Since then, I have not traveled on long trips.

In June 2013, Kalashnikov was hospitalized at the Mandryk Central Military Clinical Hospital in Moscow. Doctors performed a number of medical procedures on the designer and installed a pacemaker. Kalashnikov returned home to Izhevsk only at the beginning of September.

On November 17, Kalashnikov ended up in the intensive care unit of the clinical diagnostic center of Udmurtia. In early December, the Ministry of Health of the Republic reported that the designer was undergoing medical diagnostic and rehabilitation measures, his condition was stable.

On December 23, 2013, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov's heart stopped at the age of 95.

Prepared by Alexander Uzhanov and Sergey Ptichkin

While working on the first prototype of the AK in 1946, Mikhail looked out for his future wife Ekaterina Viktorovna Moiseeva. Katya at that time worked as a draftsman in the landfill design bureau. She worked smart and tidy. She helped Mikhail draw up documentation and turn ideas into drawings.

M. T. Kalashnikov:

“I understood by instinct what the designer wanted from this or that detail, looking at our sketches, which were not always clear. And it was hard to work with me at all, since I had no special design training, and my ability to draw was very doubtful ...

Often, when making drawings according to my sketches, Katya could not make them out. And I couldn't explain properly. Sometimes I had to make a detail before the drawing, and then Katya took measurements from it and completed the documentation. These frequent meetings of ours evoked certain hints from our comrades. And when they realized that I also fell in love with her, they simply began to overcome me with their jokes. Despite the intensity and seriousness of our work, despite the severity of wartime, we remained young, perky and cheerful ... "

Recalls L. G. Koryakovtsev:

“The draftswoman Katya was a beautiful, slender girl, with big eyes, dark wavy hair. The pronunciation is correct, Moscow. He [Kalashnikov] immediately drew attention to how she owned a drawing board, a pencil. How specifically she posed questions and how accurately she grasped his explanations ... He enthusiastically did what he loved, often staying up after midnight. Katya worked conscientiously, but she could only linger occasionally - she had a small child. Kalashnikov was also married then, had a son… But life judged in its own way.”

Katya understood that he was not like the others, shy and courteous. Everything seemed to be embarrassed about something ... There was only one deterrent - Nelya's daughter. Somehow they started talking about the meaning of life, the purpose of being at the training ground. And then Mikhail admitted that his goal was a machine gun. Katya could not help but see in this purposeful guy an obsession with the main cause of his life. And this madly attracted Katya. Although she tried to dissuade Mikhail from competing with the leading gunsmiths ... Katya quietly entered inner world Mihtima is the world of countless nodes, mechanisms and schemes, ideas and forecasts. He definitely liked that this beautiful and young woman recognized him as a person, trying to show complicity in the great cause that made up the meaning of his life. Gradually, the decision to unite their destinies forever ripened.

In 1947, Ekaterina Viktorovna and Mikhail Timofeevich had a daughter, Lena, and in 1953, Natasha. Three years later, Kalashnikov decided to bring fourteen-year-old Victor from Kazakhstan - the son from his first wife, who died there suddenly. The wife supported Mikhail in this important decision for them: "A small age can make him an easy prey for unkind people." The family was formed large and rather complex in composition. Due to the huge employment of her husband, all the worries about family life fell on the shoulders of Ekaterina Viktorovna. But she never regretted it.

Well, the life of the person who designed the legendary automaton, and the life cycle of the automaton itself, developed in different ways. If AK by 1990 had already won the hearts of most men on the planet, then his immediate "parent" - Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov continued to lead a modest, "travel restricted" lifestyle. He lived in a small apartment in a house at 11 Borodina Street in Izhevsk, of which he became an honorary citizen in 1987. Only once did Kalashnikov leave the Soviet Union, and even then tourist vacation to Bulgaria with his wife Ekaterina Viktorovna. It was in 1963. But in order to get permission for this trip, I had to go to the Minister of Defense D. F. Ustinov himself. They allowed it, but only the surname had to be changed during the trip. So on his first trip abroad, Mishan, as Ustinov lovingly called him, went to Ivanov. The legend demanded to carefully hide the true face and profession.

M. T. Kalashnikov:

“My wife, Ekaterina Viktorovna Kalashnikova (Moiseeva), died in 1977. He was a wonderful, kind, charming man. The mother of my children. For the eldest, Victor, she managed to be like a native. The guy grew up in care and attention. Followed in the footsteps of his father. The designer-gunsmith is now at Izhmash, he wants to overtake his father. Yes, I don't mind. His developments are submachine guns for the special forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs - Bizon-2, Bizon-2-01. He is a candidate of technical sciences. Sasha and Misha are Victor's sons, my grandchildren, they live and work in Izhevsk. Sasha is the head of the department of automated control systems at the Spetsgazavtoprom enterprise, and Misha is a manager at Izhmash. There are great-grandchildren - Alexandra, a 2nd year student of the Faculty of History of Izhevsk State University, Sasha's daughter, and a second grade student Daniel, son of Misha.

I have three daughters - Nelly, Elena and Natasha.

Nelli Mikhailovna, my stepdaughter, has a higher education, lives in Moscow. She has children Sasha and Zhenya, and grandchildren.

Granddaughter Zhenya lives with her husband in Colombia. I have a great-grandson there, his name is Kamalito Nadhar Vetshev.

Elena Mikhailovna, married Krasnovskaya, graduated from the Izhevsk Mechanical Institute. President of the Kalashnikov Foundation, one of my close assistants. She has a son Igor.

Well, Natasha ... "

It is hard and bitter for Mikhail Timofeevich to talk about his untimely deceased daughter. Once he dedicated a poetic line to her:

My daughter Natasha

my dear child.

Became a ballerina

right out of diapers.

Kalashnikov's friends talk about her.

Natasha danced in the famous Udmurt variety ensemble "Zangari". She studied at the Perm Choreographic School, then graduated from the Izhevsk Mechanical Institute. But dancing eventually had to be abandoned, and she began working in the patent department of the Izhevsk Mechanical Institute. Despite the small stature, she had a very strong character, like her father. Swift, big-eyed, perky was. Ridiculously died on November 13, 1983 in a car accident.

Brother Viktor Timofeevich, a simple worker, lived in Nizhny Tagil. He has a daughter, Olga. Viktor was also dispossessed and exiled. Lived a hard life.

From book A. Uzhanov "Mikhail Kalashnikov" (Series ZhZL, 2009)

Family of M. T. Kalashnikov:

Father - Timofey Alexandrovich Kalashnikov (Kalashnik) (1883-1930) - a peasant, was born in the village of Slavgorod, Akhtyrsky district, Kharkov province (now Sumy region). He left with his parents for the Kuban (Otradnoe), where he got married. After 10 years, in 1912, he left with his family for Altai under the Stolypin agrarian reform.

Mother - Alexandra Frolovna Kalashnikova (1884-1957) - was born in the Oryol province in a large family of wealthy peasants.

The first wife - Ekaterina Danilovna Astakhova - a native of the Altai Territory, worked in the railway depot of the Matai station

son - Victor (1942) - in 1956, after the death of his mother, his father takes him from Kazakhstan to his place in Izhevsk

Grandchildren: Mikhail and Alexander

The second wife - Ekaterina Viktorovna Kalashnikova (Moiseeva) (1921-1977) - a design engineer by profession.

Adopted daughter: Nelly (1942) - daughter of Ekaterina Viktorovna

Grandchildren / granddaughters: Sasha and Zhenya

Daughter: Elena Krasnovskaya (1948)

Grandson: Igor

Daughter: Natalya (1953-1983).

Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov was born on November 10, 1919 in the village of Kurya, Altai Territory, into a large peasant family. In 1930, the family was dispossessed and exiled to the Tomsk region. Until 1936, Mikhail Kalashnikov studied at school, and after graduating from nine grades of high school, he returned to Kurya, where he got a job at a machine and tractor station, and then entered a train station depot as an apprentice. A little later, he was transferred to Alma-Ata as the technical secretary of the political department of the 3rd branch of the railway.

In 1938, Mikhail Kalashnikov was drafted into the army, where he took a course as a tank driver in a tank regiment. Since September 1941, Kalashnikov has been participating in hostilities as the commander of the T-34 tank. In October 1941, in the battles near Bryansk, he was seriously wounded and seriously contused. For two weeks he left the encirclement with his comrades, after which he was sent to the hospital. In the hospital ward, M. Kalashnikov was relentlessly pursued by the idea of ​​​​developing a new submachine gun, the need for which was only talked about by the soldiers in the hospital. He used the restorative leave provided for aftercare to implement this plan in the railway workshops of the Matai station (Kazakhstan), where he worked for some time before the war. During three months Kalashnikov managed to make the first sample of a submachine gun.

In 1945, M. T. Kalashnikov took part in a competition for the development of an assault rifle chambered for the 1943 model. According to the results of competitive tests in 1947, the AK-47 assault rifle was recommended for adoption by the Soviet Army. In 1948, the young designer was sent to the Izhevsk Motor Plant, where an experimental batch of machine guns for military trials was being manufactured. In September 1949, he transferred to the Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant for the serial production of the AK-47 assault rifle.

Subsequently, the AK-47 was supplemented by a modernized 7.62 mm AKM assault rifle and a modernized AKMS automatic rifle with a folding stock. After switching to 5.45 mm caliber, a large family of Kalashnikov assault rifles appeared: AK-74, AKS-74U, AK-74M. Among the developments of Kalashnikov are RPK and RPKS light machine guns of 7.62 mm caliber with a folding butt; RPK-74 and RPKS-74 light machine guns of 5.45 mm caliber with a folding stock. In the early 1960s, a sample of a single machine gun chambered for a 7.62 × 54 mm rifle cartridge was put into service. In the early 1970s, Kalashnikov created the Saiga hunting self-loading carbine, designed on the basis of an assault rifle. In total, the Kalashnikov design bureau created more than a hundred samples of military weapons.

As for the main brainchild of the designer - the Kalashnikov assault rifle, it is recognized as the invention of the century. This assessment was given by the French newspaper Liberation, which compiled a list of outstanding inventions of the twentieth century - from aspirin to atomic bomb. The famous Israeli designer Uziel Gal once told him: "You are the most unsurpassed and authoritative designer among us." According to foreign experts, by the beginning of 1996, from 70 to 100 million samples of the machine were manufactured in the world. It is used in 100 countries around the world. The Kalashnikov assault rifle entered state symbols a number of countries - is depicted on the banners and coats of arms.

For the creation of the AK-47, Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov was awarded the Stalin (State) Prize of the first degree. for the development of a unified light machine gun the designer was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1964 he was awarded the Lenin Prize. After 34 years, M. T. Kalashnikov again became a laureate of the State Prize. In 1976, Mikhail Timofeevich was awarded the second Gold Medal "Hammer and Sickle". Among his awards are three orders of Lenin, "For Merit to the Fatherland" II degree, orders October revolution, Red Banner of Labor, Friendship of Peoples, Patriotic War I degree, Red Star, many medals. M. T. Kalashnikov - cavalier. In 2009, on the 90th anniversary of the designer, President Dmitry Medvedev awarded Kalashnikov the title of Hero of Russia.

In February 2012, during the reorganization of the enterprise, Kalashnikov was transferred to the staff of NPO Izhmash to the position of chief designer - head of the design bureau for small arms of the design and technology center of the enterprise. In August 2013, NPO Izhmash was renamed into OAO Concern Kalashnikov. Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov last years was seriously ill, but continued to go to work, created a concern, worked on new models of weapons. On November 17, Mikhail Timofeevich was placed in the intensive care unit of the Republican Clinical and Diagnostic Center of Udmurtia. The doctors did not provide details, but said that the condition of the legendary designer was serious. On December 23, 2013, he passed away.

1919 in the village of Kurya, Barnaul district, Altai province. The father of Timofey Alexandrovich Kalashnikov (1883-1930) and mother Alexandra Frolovna Koverina (1884-1957), who moved to Altai from the Kuban, from the village of Otradnaya, he was one of nineteen children.

The parents of Mikhail Kalashnikov are from immigrants, Orthodox. Father - Timofei Aleksandrovich Kalashnikov - from a peasant family, was born on February 1, 1883 in the village of Slavgorod, Akhtyrsky district, Kharkov province (now the Krasnopolsky district of the Sumy region). Paternal grandfather, Alexander Vladimirovich Kalashnikov, also came from Slavgorod. This important biographical fact is confirmed by an entry in the parish register of the Trinity Church stored in the Sumy regional archive, which was made by the priest Arseniy Luborsky in the presence of witnesses non-commissioned officer Ivan Trofimovich Cherginets and the maiden Stephanida, daughter of the psalmist Nikolai Verbitsky. The designer's mother, Alexandra Frolovna Koverina, comes from the Oryol province, from a large family of wealthy peasants.

Unfortunately, the father of the inventor could not be happy for his son, who invented the most popular machine gun in the world. Timofei Kalashnikov died in December 1930 in the village. Lower Mokhovaya, Tomsk region. Neither the cemetery nor his grave has been preserved.

As M. T. Kalashnikov recalls, there were priests in his mother's family. But Mikhail's mother married the peasant Timofey Kalashnikov out of love, albeit against the wishes of her parents. The family of the chosen one was hardworking, but not rich.

On November 5, 1901, in the Church of the Nativity of the Mother of God in the Kuban village of Otradnaya, Alexandra Frolovna and Timofey Alexandrovich Kalashnikov got married.

M. T. Kalashnikov recalls:

“Having married at the very beginning of the 20th century, my parents immediately began to build an adobe (horizontal bar) house, a common adobe (horizontal bar) house for those places, they brought in cattle. In 1903 their first daughter Parashka (Raya) was born, in 1905 their second daughter, Gasha (Agafya), and in 1907 their son Victor. The life of a young family was, though in harmony and love, but difficult. Yes, and life in the countryside does not happen easy, carefree - the peasant will not have prosperity without corns on his hands and sleepless nights! ..

Over time, the young Kalashnikovs settled down, acquired a threshing machine and even an imported Singer winnowing machine, a pleasure not cheap at that time. But the land was not enough.

Until 1900, the peasant settlers had a significant incentive. For each born Cossack boy from the day of birth, a land share of 19 acres was issued. The land share was not relied on girls. Therefore, the birth of a boy by a Cossack was considered happiness, glory, pride and the continuation of the Cossack family.

Having populated the villages, the government began to cut little by little the conditions and benefits for the Cossacks. After 1900, the land Cossack put on each male head was reduced to nine, and then to six acres.

In 1910, a rumor spread around the village of Otradnaya about the allocation of land in distant Siberia. More than ever, the stanitsa thought, and many take it and take off from their homes in a distant and unfamiliar side. Timofey Kalashnikov's thoughts about resettlement were more and more frequent. That year was very difficult. In the fall, the first-born Parashka was buried. Typhoid picked up the miserable one at the age of eight. In those years, that terrible ailment in the Russian land was fierce. Nicholas and Ivan the Lord took away, also due to illness, even earlier. Alexandra Frolovna and Timofey Alexandrovich grieved very much, but where can you get away from fate? We need to think about the future, raise the remaining children. And then back in 1910, a replenishment arrived in the Kalashnikov family - Anna was born.

That's what inspired the dream of better share the Kalashnikov family on a long journey, to the unknown outskirts of Altai, where the peasants were promised large plots of land. Timofei Kalashnikov was a good owner, he dreamed of starting a large farm, tidying up a big and bright house, and having plenty of land. So that a lot of bread was born and every animal was more sick. Timothy wanted to prove to himself and to people that he was capable of managing the earth wisely. Yes, and the respect of the parents of his beloved Alexandra Frolovna to call to himself. Like, in vain they are killed for their Sashenka, look how daring this Timofey Alexandrov is! He gets up confidently on his feet, knows how to work, lives honestly and beautifully, again acquires children. But he himself is from a simple, from a poor peasant family! Timofei Aleksandrovich was the only child in the family.

And finally, the decision was made and supported by the father and mother of Timofey Kalashnikov, Alexander Vladimirovich and Ekaterina Timofeevna. The Kalashnikovs left in 1912 from a more or less equipped place in the Kuban and headed for the distant and unknown region of Altai, taking with them only the most necessary - peasant equipment, grain and clothing. For two years now, the “Stolypin carriages” have been sliding along the rails, the back of which was intended for peasant livestock and implements. In such a "veal" car, the Kalashnikov family got to Novo-Nikolaevskaya (Novosibirsk). Then for more than a month they moved on a personal tax, having bought a horse and a cart along the way.

M. T. Kalashnikov recalls:

“This is how our family, who left their native places in search of a better life, and ended up in my homeland in the Altai village of Kurya! Why exactly in Kurya, now it is difficult to say. That year, many immigrants from their native village settled there. Some of them even moved their houses from the Caucasus!..

Having chosen a piece of land for building a house on the banks of a small, fast Loktevka river, the parents began to settle down on the spot: build a house, farmstead, cultivate the arable land received, and raise livestock.

They even brought a threshing machine. I remember that horses are harnessed, they walk in a circle and set the millstones in motion.

A vegetable garden was laid out behind the house, with access to the river: it is convenient with watering, and the children will always be supervised. The whole family worked from early morning until late at night, trying to raise the economy as soon as possible.

There, in the virgin Altai lands, the Kalashnikovs had seven more children. First, the long-awaited sons appeared - Ivan and Andrei. Mikhail was born in the troubled year of 1919, the seventeenth child in a row. He got his name in honor of Archangel Michael - the patron of the Russian army. After all, the future designer was born exactly on the eve of the bright Christian holiday- The Cathedral of the Archangel Michael and other incorporeal heavenly forces. Following Mikhail, Vasily, Tatyana, Nikolai were born. In total, Alexandra Frolovna gave birth to nineteen children, though only eight survived.

Kurya is now a fairly large village, closer to an urban-type settlement, on the border of the taiga and the steppe. And then there were few inhabitants in it, and everyone was engaged in agriculture. There was enough to do for everyone - a cowshed, a pigsty, a smithy.

M. T. Kalashnikov recalls:

“I was born the seventeenth child in the family. He was quite frail, and, according to relatives, there was no such illness that I would not have been ill with. And when I was six years old, I almost died. I had already stopped breathing: my parents were convinced of this when they brought a chicken feather to their nose - it did not move. They called a carpenter, he measured my height with a twig and went into the yard to make a coffin ... But as soon as he stuffed it with an ax, I immediately began to show signs of life. The carpenter was again called into the hut. They say that he spat in his hearts. “Such a snotty little thing,” he said, “and there too - he pretended like that!”

In the village, everyone has long been accustomed to the fact that if someone in our family dies, then they must be serious. Mom, Alexandra Frolovna, had nineteen children, and only eight of them survived.

They died at a young age. I don't remember adults. Three children were called Nikolay. I nursed always with the kid born. And I had such a privilege - to give children names. I once said: let it be "Nicholas", - and he take it and die. I waited for the next child and again named Nikolai, and he died. But the third survived. In general, I was the main nanny - I had such a right. All children were baptized, I am also baptized. But I don't know my godparents.

Mother was a believer, taught to be baptized. If you don't cross yourself, you'll get hit on the back of your head. They put me on my knees, I had to read prayers. But I don't remember a single prayer.

In early childhood, and then as a teenager, I heard more than once how my mother, lowering her voice, mysteriously told her neighbors that Misha, they say, should grow up happy - he was born in a shirt.

On snowy evenings, the family sang. If Gasha's little sister stopped, her father would suddenly sing softly... Mom would wait a little and join him, start inviting the others with her hand, and everyone would join one by one, except for me. Nobody invited me, they knew very well that "Misha will get drunk in the field when he is alone."

... How they sang, what songs! And “Glorious Sea, Sacred Baikal”, and “A storm roared, thunder roared”, and “A tramp fled from Sakhalin” ... And a song that for some reason disturbed me more than others: “A Cossack rode through a valley, through the Caucasian lands”, and for some reason, my soul ached too - like an adult.

...Our farm in the countryside did not stand out in particular. The house was small - one common room, a kitchen and a vestibule. It was built according to “Caucasian” traditions: the floor in the room is wooden, and in the kitchen, where they cooked on the stove, it was smeared, earthen.

The sisters told how every Saturday they suffered with that same earthen floor: “Wash clean in the room, but when you start washing the kitchen, you only spread dirt. Wet the soil, apply it and wait for it to dry. If they start walking earlier, then all the damp earth is immediately dragged into a clean room. And then - goodbye cleaning! Sometimes, in order not to wait for a long time, they threw straw on the damp floor. And again, thank God - it’s impossible to sweep such a floor: you swallow plenty of dust!”

In winter, the whole family slept in the room: parents and grandparents on the beds, and the children on the stove, on the floor or on the benches. In the summer it was more spacious - many of us moved to sleep in the hayloft.

Our large family dined in two groups: the older ones - grandmother, grandfather, father, mother, Victor, Gasha and Ivan - at the table. And we, the younger ones, ate on the floor, sitting on some bedclothes around a large cup.

Our parents dressed us little children in self-woven clothes. My mother had a sewing machine, on which she sewed long shirts for the boys, replacing both trousers and shirts. So we went to them for about seven years, until we began to be embarrassed by our appearance and demanded men's clothes.

The friendly and hard-working Kalashnikov family maintained their household properly. Everyone worked without exception. There were never any employees. They never ate their fill, they saved, and there was not enough for everyone. Father used to say: “You can’t build a hut with a shout, you can’t do a job with noise.” Parents with early childhood accustomed and attracted their children to peasant labor. There was no exception for one of the younger ones - Misha.

Mikhail grew up as a mobile, cheerful, inquisitive child. He stood out from the crowd of his peers with an extraordinary liveliness of mind, interest in pieces of iron, and a desire to read. He was brought up in rigor and labor. The elders were taught to help with the housework. Started my labor activity from grazing livestock and poultry. From childhood, he was taught to milk a cow and feed chickens. In the field work, he began as a chauffeur, this is when, at sunrise, they put him on horseback harnessed to a harrow or a plow, and filmed already at sunset, with a body aching and as if separated from the soul. Having matured, he began to work in the barnyard as a cab driver, harvesting hay. He often went to the village forge to admire how people work with iron. I tried to forge myself. It was there, in the Kurya forge, that the respect for metal came from the future designer.

Work was not a hindrance to Michael. On the contrary, he always took any new labor skill seriously and with some kind of childish responsibility. As if I felt that everything in life will come in handy.

Especially early I felt a desire to do something with my own hands. I constantly made something in my childhood. Already at the age of six he tried to make wooden skates. But then it was impossible to get a piece of wire. I wandered through the fields with only one thought - whether my foot would catch on some piece of iron. The elder brother Victor somehow helped to make one skate, but there was not enough material for another. So, on one skate, he rushed to the Loktevka River. And immediately jumped into the hole. Thank God, he was in his elder brother's fur coat, and she saved it - she turned into a dome and kept it on the water until the adults were ripe. Stripped naked and on the stove, and there the oats were dried. I woke up miraculously. revived. There were worse cases as well. The memory does not remember everything.

Father Timofei Alexandrovich had only two classes of the parochial school, mother Alexandra Frolovna was also illiterate. However, parents understood the importance of education for the future of children.

M. T. Kalashnikov recalls:

My first teacher was Zinaida Ivanovna - a beautiful, middle-aged woman with a quiet, gentle voice. Each of us saw in her his second mother, each dreamed of earning her praise. She, with great patience and kindness, raised us, so different in their physical and mental development village kids. She said that study and work are an inseparable whole. So our upbringing at school was based primarily on instilling in us respect for the hard work on mother earth, on the indispensable assistance to the elders in their worries, on the constant care of domestic animals. Zinaida Ivanovna was the initiator of the competition for the best organization of the calf fattening business. Each of us lovingly cared for the young. It was somewhat similar to a modern family contract, only among schoolchildren. I remember how much pride I felt when my efforts in nursing a bull named Handsome were highly appreciated by the teacher and one of the best students in our class, for whom I had sympathy at that time.

The tragic year of 1930 came. A wave of continuous collectivization of peasant farms also reached Kurya, dividing people overnight into poor and rich, as if into normal people and lepers. The second group included the most industrious and, therefore, somewhat distinguished families in terms of prosperity.

In the cohort of that Kurya poor, there were mainly loafers and loafers. Such was the bitter truth of that terrible time. Five sons were then growing up in the Kalashnikov family. The eldest Ivan was 15 years old, the youngest Nikolai - 3 years old, Andrei - 14 years old, Vasily - 10. By that time, Timofey Kalashnikov's parents had already found eternal rest in Kurya. A difficult, exhausting journey to taiga Siberia, to uninhabited places, was ahead. Mikhail's two older sisters - Agafya (Gasha) and Anna (Nyura) have already created their own families and therefore remained in Kurya. Timofei Alexandrovich and Alexandra Frolovna went with their sons to a remote taiga exile. All their hard-earned honest and unbearable property was confiscated. In total, half of the peasant families were dispossessed and expelled from Kurya.

Here is how the eviction of the Kalashnikovs took place, according to the memoirs of Mikhail Timofeevich:

“Suddenly, several hefty men with axes and knives in their hands entered our yard. And now I saw for the first time how such a huge and, it seemed, invincible bull was ruthlessly killed with one blow of ambition. After the blow, the bull instantly fell on its front legs and immediately fell on its side, and at this time the second man quickly cut his throat. The bull, as if coming to his senses from the blow, tries to get up, but it's too late, the blood beats in a fountain from his throat, whips around. The cutting of carcasses of cows and sheep has begun ...

The entrails were thrown out over the fence, and there formed a large heap, in which live calves and lambs, who had not yet been born, were swarming. The sight was terrible. And the blood-stained men, killing another pregnant cow, laughed in cold blood: “Here, we save the owners from unnecessary trouble ... we free the kids, otherwise they came up with here: scientific cultivation.”

I think that only the fathers of those of our classmates who had nothing to grow at home could say so ...

Our cows were slaughtered last, and our lambs were slaughtered, and their skins were hung next to the rest on the beams in the yard. After all the carcasses and skins were taken away, our yard presented a terrible sight, and father ordered all of us to take shovels and cover the bloody spills with snow. But everything around was trampled and splashed so badly that we had to repeat the backfilling several times - carry the snow from the garden to the yard, and then remove it, throwing it over the fence into the yard to the neighbors, who had already been “dispossessed of kulaks” before that.

The family of the exiled Timofey Alexandrovich Kalashnikov, according to the order, was first taken to the village of Verkhnyaya Mokhovaya, and then transported through the Middle Mokhovaya to the village of Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya. This was, as Kalashnikov says, their settlement.

This village no longer exists. It cannot be said that these were strictly protected zones. These were ordinary small villages in which they lived and locals and special settlers. The heads of the families of the latter were ordered to regularly report to the police and report. And only in 1936 the new Constitution of the USSR returned civil rights to all the deportees.

“Only we were moved there from Kurya,” recalls Mikhail Kalashnikov, “the rest from other places in Siberia arrived. Kerzhaks lived in those places, the Old Believers. Kerzhaks do not like strangers - this is what they said about the Old Believers. Perhaps that is why they managed to preserve the ancient pre-Petrine Russian culture.

Kerzhatsky villages appeared in the 17th century. Hiding from the persecution of the official Russian Orthodox Church, covered by the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, the inhabitants of the Nizhny Novgorod province from the Kerzhenets River fled to the dense Trans-Volga forests. The Old Believers lived very closed, avoiding communication not only with the official authorities, but also with the local population. The first mention of the Kerzhaks who settled in the territory of the Bakcharsky district dates back to the middle of the 19th century. They are connected with the appearance in 1918 on the Galka River of the Selivanovs' lodge. But in 1929-1930 new settlers came - dispossessed peasants, mainly from Siberia. They were allotted land in order to create large collective farms. As an administrative-territorial entity, Bakcharsky district was formed in 1936. Just this year, Michael left these lands forever. And never went back there again.

M. T. Kalashnikov, not without difficulty and heartache, recalls another place in his life, tells what the local Kerzhaks who met his family were like:

“Water will not be allowed to drink. If you drink from their dishes without asking, they will throw you out of the house. They are, these old believers. They have their own laws. But there were also civilized ones among them.

The hostess, to whom we were attached upon arrival in Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya, had an eldest son Markel, much older than me. Here he ordered the radio from somewhere. For the village it was a curiosity. Such a big box! The Old Believer is an Old Believer, but he took it and bought a radio. He put on his headphones and let's listen. I wanted to hear too. I looked so pitiful and begging that he let me snuggle up to those wonderful headphones.

In those places there were a lot of mushrooms, berries and pine nuts, hunting crafts were developed. Therefore, Mikhail Kalashnikov was addicted to hunting from an early age. It was there that he picked up his father's gun for the first time in his life.

The Kalashnikovs lived in Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya at first in barracks.

“We were settled in a house where there were beds,” recalls Mikhail Timofeevich. - In Kurya they had no idea about the floors. And there - you jump on the stove and from it you climb onto the platform. They passed the time, listening, looking out from there, as the elders were talking. And they slept. It was warm there.

After clearing the plots in the forest for the settlement, they began to create their own economy, develop virgin lands for vegetable gardens. The collective farm was organized. They plowed on cows and bulls. Some were well managed somehow, saying “tsob-tsobe”. And we were not used to this, so our family had a horse.”

They had just begun to settle in a new place, when in December 1930 grief befell the family - father Timofey Alexandrovich died of consumption. They buried him in winter.

M. T. Kalashnikov:

“When my father died, it was very cold. Refrigeration, waist-deep snow. The coffin was placed in a cold room, we children were afraid to sleep. It seemed that the father would get up and come out of there. He spent a week in the house. Finally, the horse was brought in, the skis were tied together, and the coffin was loaded onto them. We stayed at home because of the cold and bad clothes. I don't know exactly where my father's grave is.

My father has always been an example to us. He tried to give us the main thing - to educate in us the vital need for work. “Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty, don't be afraid,” as if I still hear his mocking voice. “There should be a ‘white penny’ in black hands.” So he waited for her for all of us. So pissed off! “Hadted!” - wailed broken by the immeasurable suffering that overtook her in a foreign land, our mother.

To feed her sons, the mother got along with a widower neighbor Kosach Efrem Nikitich. I don't remember where it was sent from. He spoke Ukrainian. He had two daughters and a son. One daughter was sick, absolutely bedridden. We buried her. And the boy's name was also Michael. So there were two Mishas in the family. In order not to be confused, they called him “Misha small”, and me, therefore, “Misha big”. So it stuck - “Misha is small”, “Misha is big”. E-he-he. After I left Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya in 1936, “M s sha little ”learned to be an agronomist, started a family, only used too much. After the war, they moved to Pospelikha - 60 kilometers from our village Kurya. Some relatives lived there, or something. Then at M s our grandchildren appeared. Once he and his grandson went for a walk along the river. We decided to take a dip. Well, both drowned - and M s sha, and a grandson of seven years. This is how his life ended.

I remember that as a child I could not call my stepfather a father, well, it didn’t work out. Though you crack, the tongue did not turn. So you have to name it, but I somehow dodge it. All could not break himself. Others called me “tyaty”, the elders also called me father, but I basically didn’t and that’s all. I was specially forced to do this, but I dodged. And he was on his own. Here they go to bed with their mother. I put the ax under my pillow and think - I'll kill him at night. But it was so, not seriously. We are grateful to our father. He was very hardworking. He also taught us to dig the earth with shovels, and harrow, and thresh with a flail, and winnow. Oh-oh-oh ... Learned a lot from him. There were no mills at all in the settlement. Grain and cereals were passed through the mermaids. Ruin - means to grind, crush. Those devices were also called grits, grits, grits. I made them myself. From cedar. They are huge and even. He stuffed staples from wire around a piece of wood. He arranged a nest, where the grain was poured, attached a handle, and hammered a spire into the center ... Oh, what a hard job it is to demolish. Flour still did not work, but only beaten, crushed grain. Anyway, they baked bread from that flour.

My stepfather was a good man, very hardworking. Relations gradually improved. He knew a lot and taught us children to work. Here the rye will ripen, the stepfather will prepare the sickles - and let's cut with him. He showed me only once - and somehow I quickly mastered it and began to work. Then something hurried up and cut his hand - he grabbed a piece of earth and applied it, there is still a circular scar.

Sheaves knitted himself. Suslon, it seems, is called. Stacked hay and straw. Threshed the harvest. Sheaves were laid on clean land, it was a current - and let's peel with flails. The stick is so long, and another small one is nailed to it. The harvest was all for the family, nothing was given to the collective farm. And the state gave the seeds and obliged to sow. It was necessary to sow per hectare, so the seeds were given free of charge. They gave me bags of fish. That's what happens: they sent them to send, but they also supported them, so they didn't really go hungry. In the summer, salt the cucumber and eat it - you can’t imagine better. And they kept cattle - a horse, a cow.

So I think, maybe it was so necessary - after all, they dispossessed the most economic and adapted to work on the earth people. Then, in exile, they dug into the virgin lands and raised them, brought them to the desired condition. Maybe Stalin thereby ensured the development of the deserted spaces of Russia? And then after all, uninvited guests would have got it. What we are seeing today Far East, and in Siberia too. No, there was obviously a homespun truth in that cruel deed. The country had to be preserved and strengthened, the war was not far off. I do not justify Stalinism and its excesses, but here's something I think, all this was not accidental, it was calculated for a great future. It was a far-sighted policy."

Despite the worldly disorder and the half-starved existence of the family, the younger children were given the opportunity to continue their studies at school. But in Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya there was only a four-year-old, it was later built a secondary school, when Kalashnikov had already left the village.

The veteran of the Great Patriotic War Ivan Vasilievich Melnikov (the village of Novaya Burka, Bakcharsky district, Tomsk region) recalls:

“In the spring of 1933, Mikhail Kalashnikov and I graduated from the fourth grade of an elementary school in Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya. We decided to study further. There was no fifth grade in the nearest villages. And Mikhail and I waved on foot to High Yar. It's 35 kilometers away.

There we were told that there were no places in the fifth grade and that they could only be accepted in the sixth. But you need to pass exams in Russian and mathematics. We did not srobeli - agreed. Exams passed successfully. We were ready to return to Vysokiy Yar by the first of September. But that did not happen.

When we returned home, we learned that an incomplete secondary school was being opened in Voronikha. On the first of September we were in Voronikh. Lived next door to G. Plotnikov, born in 1930. On the pediment of the school from the street was a large, very beautiful star with edges made of glass spikes.

At least a hundred people got into the fifth grade (from all the villages from Novaya Burka to Parbig). All were accepted, forming three fifth grades. One sixth grade was also opened. The school began to live. Voronikhinsky teachers entirely had a university education. But her life was not serene: trouble awaited her. In December, it became known that the school was not included in the budget. We were told that in order not to close the school, each student had to pay 25 rubles. Half of this amount must be paid immediately, the rest - later.

After the holidays there were less than thirty of us, one class. But the school was not closed. We can say that we saved her. Unfortunately, Michael dropped out. In his large family, there was no money needed for education. But who knows, maybe it's for the best. Maybe already then, at the age of 14, he decided to do everything himself, not to depend on anyone.

M. T. Kalashnikov:

“We walked to the school in the village of Voronikha, 15 kilometers away. For a week, or even for two, the mother will prepare food - and on the road. We were assigned apartments there. I went home only once a week - on Sunday. In winter, it was hard to walk, because they walked through the swamp, on the flooring of logs. Golya was nicknamed that place. The quagmire is terrible, and sometimes rotten water splashes from there. There I finished school - eight classes. This is the ninth I added from myself.

And there was no help from parents in studies before, and now, when adults were exclusively busy surviving in a new place, even more so. What help is there if Timofey Alexandrovich graduated from only two classes of the parochial school, and Alexandra Frolovna did not know the letter at all.

Michael studied without difficulty. The teachers were mostly exiled political settlers, literate people with university education and life experience. There were not enough textbooks, there were no notebooks, they wrote on birch bark. The classes in technical circles were very interesting. Mikhail was fond of physics, geometry and literature.

M. T. Kalashnikov:

“There was not even a bicycle in our village. I tried to make a bicycle - but where do you get chains and gears? Then I, being a schoolboy, decided to create perpetual motion machine. It seemed to me that only tiny balls were missing. The teachers seemed to be literate, but I fooled their brains so much that they also began to shrug: it seems that the engine will work if such a bearing is found.

But epigrams and small lyrical messages to classmates came out best of all.

We walked in whatever. The older ones take down the clothes - the tailor altered them for the younger children. And so they lived. Everything was self-woven. Life was not easy. But somehow a person adapts.

Somehow they got burned. Something happened on the outskirts of the village, and one house caught fire. A was strong wind- all the houses burned down. Wooden, burn quickly. It was during the day. And we were at school for 15 kilometers. We were told there was a fire. I quickly ran. All that was left of the house was the stove. All property burned down. Our street was completely burned down, only black firebrands sticking out. What was saved was dragged to another street. No one, however, was hurt...

The people somehow worry about everything. So my stepfather began to cook logs in the summer. Cut, process. He knew how to drive tar. From birch bark, from the bark drove tar. Used as a lubricant. Then, in the snow in winter, each log was pulled out of the forest. So gradually they brought in building materials. Then the boards began to saw. In the end, a new house was built on the same burnt place.

Years passed. From a dreamer-teenager, I turned into a young man - also a dreamer. Finished his studies in the last classes of the school at the new place of residence. I started thinking about my future fate: who to be? For some reason, it seemed to everyone that my fate was sealed: I must certainly become a poet.

I started writing poetry in the third grade. It is difficult to say how much I have written in school years: poems, small quatrains, friendly caricatures. Wrote and read to classmates. Lyrical messages to classmates came out well. But there were even plays that were performed by students of our school. At school, they even gave me a nickname - “Poet”.

Notepad and pencil were my constant companions day and night. Sometimes, unexpectedly waking up at the dead of time, I took them out from under the pillow and in the dark wrote down rhyming lines that I could hardly make out in the morning.

Since childhood, he loved Nekrasov's poems, asking him to read his brother Victor or his sister Gasha in the evenings. And they also read Pushkin, Yesenin, Beranger.

Sometimes Mikhail wanted to write such a text so that it would turn into a song. I was constantly in search of a new idea, an interesting topic. And life kept throwing them up.

notice, that the day Mikhail Kalashnikov was born, historically rich in events and people. Exactly 300 years before that, on the night of November 10, 1619, the 23-year-old French mathematician and philosopher Rene Descartes experienced the central event of his life: in three dreams that followed one after another, he saw all the key moments of his further scientific work, and most importantly , a new branch of mathematics - analytic geometry. In 1709, on this day, Russian troops destroyed Baturin, the capital of the hetman of the Left-Bank Ukraine, I. Mazepa. And 160 years before the birth of M. T. Kalashnikov, the world was marked by the birth of the German poet and playwright Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. Also born on this day: French composer and organist François Couperin, People's Artist Russia, violist A. E. Frantseva, film actor Richard Burton.

Domestic scientists and designers owe their birth to this day - a prominent radio scientist, one of the founders of domestic cybernetics Aksel Ivanovich Berg, three times Hero of Socialist Labor Academician Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev, under whose leadership more than a hundred types of military and civil aircraft were created, the creator of space communication systems, television and navigation Mikhail Fedorovich Reshetnev. The American aircraft designer John Knudsen Northrop, whose ideas were used to create the B-2 stealth bomber, was also born on this day.

Interestingly, astrologers claim that those born on November 10 (the sign of Scorpio) are constantly faced with major changes both in themselves and in those materials and products with which they work. They sometimes have to hide from the outside world for years. Maybe someone will see in this some connection with the biography of Kalashnikov, who for a long time was a secret designer. Even now he often repeats: “When they let me out of the underground…”.

Lovers of horoscopes will probably "calculate" from Kalashnikov many other important qualities that are characteristic of extraordinary people. We are more interested in character traits that are noted in him by people who know Mikhail Timofeevich closely in life. He is demanding and principled towards himself. Differs in perseverance, perseverance, purposefulness, obsession in any business started. These qualities, plus an outstanding mind and ingenuity, allowed Senior Sergeant Kalashnikov to win the competition with educated, titled weapon designers.

Short in stature, stocky, seemingly simple and accessible to any person, Mikhail Timofeevich, as they say, is on his mind. He rarely enters into an argument with people of other views, because he still remains with his own opinion. Crazy ideas and services of various "inventors" are not accepted. But he always listens to the comments of military people, especially soldiers who use his weapons during their service. Once, a hunter from Agryz criticized Kalashnikov for his Saiga hunting carbine. Mikhail Timofeevich listened attentively, and subsequently altered something in his product.

Kalashnikov expresses dissatisfaction with someone's act in a peculiar way: he grumbles about this for a long time, expressing his claims to the guilty person. In such cases, friends do not get angry with Kalashnikov, because they know that he will not offend anyone in vain.

The amazing fate of Mikhail Kalashnikov was determined not only by the stars, but also by his last name. Surname Kalashnikov leads history from the central regions of the Old Russian state, is one of the old Russian surnames formed from the worldly name of the ancestor. As the well-known historian and linguist Yuri Fedosyuk writes in his works on onomastics, “Children received the nickname Kalashnikov by the name of their father’s occupation - a baker and seller of rolls. It must be said that the people who kept shops in the Kalash ranks were always a fairly wealthy stratum of society in major cities. The parents could give the name Kalach or Kalash to their newborn son. Our ancestors believed that the name could affect the fate of the child, and tried to give him a name that would help him in life. Parents, who called their son Kalash, wished him a comfortable and satisfying life.

Old Russian documents include: Boris Kalashnikov (Novgorod, 1608) - a teacher, taught grammar to noble children; Nikita Kalashnikov (Mozhaisk, 1644) - icon painter; Vasily, Kalash's son (Totma, 1660) - a peasant.

The name Kalashnikov is undoubtedly one of the monuments of folklore, ancient customs and traditions. The most famous historical character so far is the merchant Kalashnikov, a collective image of the “Russian army”, sung by M. Yu. Lermontov in 1838 in the poem “The Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the young guardsman and daring merchant Kalashnikov”.

Subsequently, the surname was glorified by Ivan Timofeevich Kalashnikov (1797–1863) - a novelist, the first writer of provincial life, the founder of the Siberian historical novel. At various times he was an employee of the state horse breeding in Irkutsk, an adviser to the Tobolsk provincial government, and a secret adviser to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The father of the future writer Timofey Petrovich left notes written in a clear, expressive style, “The Life of the Unfamous Timofey Petrovich Kalashnikov.” The notes covered the life of the Kalashnikov family from 1762 to 1794, they provide vivid pictures of everyday life, social events witnessed by the author.

In 1823, I. Kalashnikov moved from Irkutsk to live in St. Petersburg. Wrote several novels and stories: "The Daughter of the Merchant Zholobov", "Kamchadalka", "Exiles", "The Life of a Peasant Woman". The Notes of an Irkutsk Resident, unpublished during his lifetime, first saw the light in the Russkaya Starina magazine for 1905. Printed by I. Kalashnikov and poetry. His first books were approved by A. S. Pushkin, I. A. Krylov, V. K. Kuchelbeker, N. A. Nekrasov. Critics called Ivan Kalashnikov the Russian Cooper. Burdened with the duties of a fairly high-ranking official, forced to work in several places at once for the sake of providing for his family, he did not find either the time or the strength to take up literary work more seriously.

In his works, Kalashnikov acted as a historian, linguist, geographer and ethnographer. He accurately and figuratively drew important events associated with the annexation of Siberia, the first steps in the development of Kamchatka and the entry of pioneers to the Pacific Ocean. He reproduced pictures of the life of provincial officials, bourgeois, peasants, Cossacks, the heroic defense of the Albazin fortress; gave a description of the governors of Eastern Siberia (I. Pestel, N. Treskin, M. Speransky). I. Kalashnikov was the first writer to reflect in his works the life of the indigenous inhabitants of Siberia, and he showed not only their backwardness in economic and cultural terms, but also the best features that distinguish them: directness, honesty, high attitude to military duty, national dignity and natural behavior.

And here is an interesting parallel. In 1841, Ivan Kalashnikov wrote the novel "Automatic", in which the devil turns a person into an obedient instrument of evil will. Let's get acquainted (in retelling) with a small excerpt from this work.

In delirium, the young hero Yevgeny imagines that he is listening to a lecture by a professor who argues as follows: “Man is an automaton. The great teachers of Germany have finally opened the eyes of blind humanity. From now on, the duty of a person should be pleasure, the goal of his actions - earthly bliss, his own "I". Away with virtue, love of neighbor, generosity. We have nothing to think about others ... "

The shocked hero vehemently objects, but around him are automatons who have lost their conscience. They enthusiastically listen to blasphemous reasoning, behave badly, and the professor immediately convinces Eugene that he is like everyone else. As a result, the hero commits murder, and greed for money consumes him. "God's justice is not terrible for me!" - Eugene exclaims and at the same moment begins to fall into the abyss, at the bottom of which the flames of fiery hell ...

“His soul froze, but suddenly light angel at the last moment flew to his aid. “You are saved,” he said. - Return to earth and repent of your delusion... Trust in the mercy of the Creator. Resort to him alone in your sorrows ... "

It was 1841. And as if in confirmation of the eternal truth of the cyclical nature of life, exactly a century later, our illustrious contemporary Mikhail Kalashnikov, also Timofeevich and also born in November, began to create his own machine gun, but only as a weapon to fight evil, as a means to protect his Fatherland. History repeated itself, only at a qualitatively different level, with a plus sign. So thanks to Mikhail Timofeevich, the Kalashnikov family constellation was replenished with a new bright star, and the “automatic” from literary work by the hands of the master turned into a model of the perfect small arms. Well, M. T. Kalashnikov himself acquired the completely noble pseudonym "man-machine".

From book A. Uzhanov "Mikhail Kalashnikov" (Series ZhZL, 2009)