Aktuality
11.11.2004Defend Lock wished Kalashnikov a happy 85th birthday
The designer of the renowned machine gun, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov celebrated his 85th birthday this year, on November 10. More than 800 personalities of Russian and worldwide politics and diplomacy converged on his home town of Izhevsk in the Urals, where Kalashnikov lives to this day, to congratulate him on this milestone.
Among the well-wishers was also the plenipotentiary and business counsellor of the Udmurd Republic for the CR and SR, and general director of the company Marbo CZ a.s., Ing. Pavel Vojtek.
“It is a personal honour for me to have been able to exchange greetings with and congratulate Mr. M.T. Kalashnikov on his noteworthy milestone in life in the name of the citizens of the Czech and Slovak Republics”, stated Ing. Pavel Vojtek, and added: “it’s fascinating that the entire world knows his name, and yet until the fall of the iron curtain, no one had any inkling of his existence. For due to security reasons, M.T. Kalashnikov had all communication with the outside world restricted.”
According to estimates, there are around 80 million AK-47 “Kalashnikov” machine guns around the world. The first model was manufactured in 1947 and since then has been mass produced in various countries. Kalashnikov himself received many Soviet state awards for his genial invention, but reputedly not even a kopeck. On the day of his birthday a museum named after this famous weapons designer was opened in Izhevsk. A number of representatives of the Russian government and leaders of the Secretariat of the President of the Russian Federation participated at the gala opening.
