The Gun that Changed the World

The Russian word that is most frequently spoken throughout the world isn’t Lenin, gulag or perestroika, it’s ‘Kalashnikov’. The reason for this is there are 80 million Kalashnikovs in circulation on five continents. Once invented, the AK-47 assault rifle became the most widely used weapon in the from Vietnam to Palestine, from Cuba to Iraq, it was at the heart of conflicts and struggles everywhere. It is the only firearm that has ever been depicted on a national flag – that of Mozambique, where it symbolizes liberation.
Mikhail Kalashnikov himself, who was born in 1919, here tells his life story, with the help of Elena Joly, for the first his deportation to Siberia with his family while still a child; his time as a soldier in a tank regiment; his invention of the world’s most famous weapon and his turbulent life under Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin. This is a remarkable portrait of a man of ingenuity and vitality in the context of the often frightening and terribly unforgiving Russia of the twentieth century.