Kalashnikov calls new kind of shots; What drove the designer of

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Sep 26, 2004 | by Vicky Allan

A NEW brand of vodka was launched last Monday night at a reception in the Century Club, London. There, 84-year-old General Mikhail Kalashnikov, dressed in military uniform, chest pinned with a slab of ribbons, partially-deafened by the repeated test-fire of his famous gun, raised a glass of Kalashnikov to his friends in the West. "I would like," he said in Russian, "the product we are about to launch to be as reliable and easy to use as my gun."

It was a smart joke, one which could have been scripted by a marketing executive, but which came, apparently, from the general himself. That had been his catchphrase from the outset - if he was to put his name behind a product, it would have to have the "reliability" of his AK-47.

It says a lot about our culture and its fetishisation of terrorism, violence and war, that this raises a laugh, or that a drink, a "shot", named after a weapon might have a market appeal. Three weeks ago, Kalashnikov rifles were used by hostage-takers in Beslan, in North Ossetia. It is estimated that over 80 million Kalashnikovs have been produced in the 57 years of its design life, and that, throughout the last decade, the majority of deaths in conflict were caused by these or similar guns.

The morning after the reception, Kalashnikov defended his position, as most designers have done. "I am to blame," he said, "only for having designed a reliable weapon. You see, the criminals who use my weapons, use what is more reliable. I'm certainly very sad when I see my weapon being used when they shouldn't be used. But the designer is not to blame. It's the politicians who are to blame for being unable to come to peaceful political solutions."

Certainly, Kalashnikov could not have predicted the dissemination of his gun; that in the end it would be the AK-47 and its descendants - and not the nuclear bomb - that would be the most destructive weapon of the last 50 years, or that it would become so much part of the character of our times of inter-ethnic strife and terrorism.

"The worst thing is when I see a war that's fratricide," he said. "I see my weapons on both sides."

Kalashnikov said weapons designers from different camps often get in touch with each other and form friendships. "I made friends with the American Eugene Stoner who designed the M16 rifle. Our families are now friends. You see, he worked for his country, I worked for mine."

Kalashnikov still has the same office at the Izhmash factory in Izhevsk he has kept for years. If he is not away on other business, he goes in at 9am. The town itself, one of Russia's largest industrial complexes, is bleak and Soviet. Though Kalashnikov has received no royalties from his gun, he says that he is comfortably off.

It was not out of need that he set out on his recent capitalist endeavour, but more in a spirit of adventure, following an approach by entrepreneur John Florey.

"We are living in a time when everyone is doing business and trying to make some money," he said. "My name and my weapons have become world-famous. And we started thinking whether we could use my name on all sorts of products. But I was very careful approaching that. So when this conversation started about making a vodka with my name, I resisted at the beginning. But then I thought: Why not make a good product, bearing a name that is world-famous?"

To understand the man, you have to know his story, his journey from peasant upbringing in the village of Kurya to celebrated Hero of Socialist Labour with museums dedicated to his name.

Kalashnikov was born one of 18 brothers and sisters, of whom, only eight survived. "My mother must have given birth to me already with some beginnings of a designer. As a child I liked to disassemble devices, locks and all sorts."

In 1939 he was conscripted into the Red Army and asked if he could be sent somewhere where he could learn about machinery. But while commanding a tank on the Brjansk front, he was hit by a German shell and suffered wounds to his chest and head.

While hospitalised, he started sketching designs for a gun. Out on the battlefield, he had seen how disadvantaged his countrymen were against the German army. "I got some school notebooks and I started making my first drafts. Other wounded soldiers were laughing at me. They said 'What sort of an Edison are you? What are you inventing there?'. But some of them were supporting me and saying: 'Come on Misha, do it, we'll use your weapons in the future.'"

The latest Kalashnikov is 82% vodka, "made from grain harvested in Russia and water drawn from Lake Ladoga north of St Petersburg". Kalashnikov seems to have a flair for publicity, for a comic turn of phrase. In the West, since the demise of the Soviet Union, things Soviet have acquired a kitsch appeal. Kalashnikov may appear, at first, to be flirting with that, but he is not. He is a proud man, who despite his embrace of the vodka market, still keeps Western capitalist ways at arm's length.

"During Soviet times, I wasn't a poor designer. Nowadays I don't feel poor either, I feel I'm provided for very well. However, I haven't gained a lot of property, I don't have a big house. When I go abroad, I keep being told: 'If you lived in the West you would be a multi-millionaire by now.'