Mikhail Kalashnikov is not a happy camper
Last week Kalashnikov wrote an open letter addressed to the citizens, Prime Minister and President of Russia. He is very unhappy about rumors, presumably in the media, that Izhmash, the company that produces the AK and other military and sporting arms, is in trouble and will close down soon.
He attributes the rumors to foreign nations trying to undermine Russian power and goes on to encourage Russian law enforcement, who use Izhmash firearms, to punish the rumor spreaders.
I translated the letter using Google Translate (originally from the Izhmash website):
Dear Dmitry!
Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!
Dear fellow citizens!Today, I appeal to you all a very sad occasion. Nearly half a year stretches harassment plant Izhmash, where I worked for 60 years and I feel proud of our country.
As the country goes unknown to anyone Committee employees and veterans’ Izhmasha. ” It is far from the factory, people acting on behalf izhmashevtsev and say that the plant surviving the last few days.
Those who spread rumors about the collapse of “Izhmash” – issued wishful thinking!
I work with “Izhmashe, and I see that the plant continues to operate normally today. We are actively engaged in fulfilling the state defense order to rearm our Army and international military-technical cooperation. Our hunting weapons demand worldwide. Russian athletes win with our new weapons and new awards. Great honor for us was that the President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev, visiting “Izhmash” in February this year, called it the pride of Russian industry.
There are people who want to cross out all of this, the credibility of the “Izhmashu” in Russia and abroad, deprive him of his orders and thus an opportunity to select and further improve our weapons. They hide behind good goals, good goals but do not reach through lies.
I do not know who it is. But I think the ability to do so only those foreign nations who want to undermine the power of Russia, or banditry groups that want to gain force again, to get the plant for the production of small arms.
I appeal to all our law enforcement agencies. After all, you have to work with us, because you know that without arms “Izhmasha” Our country will not have the great power that it has become in recent years. I ask you to prevent this flow of lies and punish the guilty.
Best regards,
Mikhail Kalashnikov Timofeyevich
What the hell? I am shock by the statement. No Western firearms manufactures would spread rumors like this.Then again it could be the Germans. I joke, I joke.
It could be from stock brokers that want to drive down the value of the company. Is Izhmash publicly traded in Russia? The Russian stock market has lost over 50% of it value. With oil price dropping, Russia is in serious economic trouble.
It could be government officials that are helping a rival company. Russian’s officials aren’t known for honesty.
With that said, a lot of former Com-Bloc is moving away from the AK design.
Don’t you just love it “The power of Russia” … I guess he didn’t get the memo, communism failed when the Communists ran out of other people’s money to give away.
LOL so lets go kill the people that started the rumor, kinda sounds like the good ole days of the USSR (or is it just me). Gosh I thought that the guy who invented the infamous AK would have thicker skin than that. Well I guess the golden day of the AK is no more. Maybe people have actually just seen the light and realized how gosh awful the AK is.
noooo!
I want to buy a saiga 12…
I hope that the Izhmash don’t close before…
The AK isn’t a bad design. The pinnacle of its ideology, that is inexpensive, mass produced, and designed for people that don’t know how to shoot.
With the exception of the AK107 and 108, other then changing calibers, the AK mainly stay the same over the years. The AR has changed with the times and have gotten better with each generation.
I thought the object was to leave the ideology out of it? Most of the posts above are ideology. Kalashnikov was a guy who figured out a simple, durable, easily manufactured assault carbine. Maybe not the equal of the AR or FN or Gewehr in performance, but when the whole package is taken together, it’s the weapon that poor countries can afford, and it’s good enough to put poor people’s armies on something like equal footing with the rich countries’ armies. That is a remarkable thing, whether we like it or not.
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Google translate = Borat