Mikhail Kalashnikov

Quotes

• “I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists. … I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work — for example a lawnmower.”
• “I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence.”
• “Blame the Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer … I always wanted to construct agriculture machinery.”
• “When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, "All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed" ... So this has been my lifetime motto – I have been creating weapons to defend the borders of my fatherland, to be simple and reliable.”
• “Whenever I look at TV and I see the weapon I invented to defend my motherland in the hands of these bin Ladens, I ask myself the same question: "How did it get into their hands?" I didn't put it in the hands of bandits and terrorists, and it's not my fault that it has mushroomed uncontrollably across the globe. Can I be blamed that they consider it the most reliable weapon?”
• “I was in the hospital, and a soldier in the bed beside me asked: "Why do our soldiers have only one rifle for two or three of our men, when the Germans have automatics?" So I designed one. I was a soldier, and I created a machine gun for a soldier. It was called an Avtomat Kalashnikova, the automatic weapon of Kalashnikov — AK — and it carried the date of its first manufacture, 1947.”

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