IZHEVSK, December 24 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s largest arms manufacturer, the Kalashnikov Group, said it plans to turn the office of legendary gun designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, who died on Monday, into a small museum.
“This [the museum] is for the edification of our young [employees], whom we’ll bring to the [manufacturing] plant,” said Kalashnikov head Konstantin Busygin.
The 94-year-old former Soviet general and creator of the world’s most popular firearm died of a prolonged, unspecified illness in Izhevsk, the capital of Russia’s Udmurtia republic.
Kalashnikov had recently been admitted to an intensive care unit at a hospital in Izhevsk, after undergoing an operation in Moscow in June to have a pacemaker implanted.
He will be buried in a cemetery in Izhevsk, his home region, on December 26 to allow time for foreign guests to arrive, said a spokesman for the head of the Udmurtia Republic, Viktor Chulkov.
Izhevsk already has a dedicated Kalashnikov museum, opened in 2004, that includes a range where visitors can fire air gun copies of AK series weapons on a range.
The Kalashnikov Group, which still manufactures derivatives of the AK-47 and produces 95 percent of Russia’s small arms, said it may also create a memorial plaque and establish an award bearing Kalashnikov’s name to honor the arms manufacturer’s best branches and employees.
An estimated 100 million Kalashnikov assault rifles have been built since the weapon, a favorite of armed forces, guerrillas and terrorists worldwide, first went into mass production in February 1947.
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