The history of the glorious Izhevsk Machine-Building Plant begins back in 1807, when an arms office was opened on the banks of the Izh River at the ironworks built about 50 years earlier. The foundation of the main building was laid in 1811 according to the project of Semyon Dudin, the first professional architect of Izhevsk. The construction was supervised by Andrey Deryabin, the head of the Goroblagodatsk, Kama and Bogoslovsk factories. A bronze bust in memory of this outstanding man stands on the dam of the Izhevsk Pond.
18 countries received licenses for its production, including all parties to the Warsaw Pact. Another 11 states began to manufacture the legendary weapon illegally. Factories and semi-handicraft workshops were launched, where the parts of the machine gun were made almost by hand. According to the Rosoboronexport Company, modifications of the Kalashnikov assault rifle AK and AKM were the most popular small arms of the 20th century. According to various estimates, up to 105 million copies of it exist in the world. All licenses and patents have long expired, but this does not stop the flow of counterfeit goods.
The facade of the four-story red building of the Izhevsk Plant is decorated with 12 white pillars supporting a portico with an ornament. It is crowned by a clock tower and an observation deck. The metal fence is decorated by crown-shaped bas-reliefs on historical themes. However, the main thing is inside the building: here, for the first time in Russia, the progressive idea of organizing production ‘from bottom to top’ was implemented. Rough workpieces were made on the lower floors, which were gradually refined as they ascended to the upper tiers. Following the main building, an additional one was built. They were connected with an overhead passage.
The works continued till until 1920 when the production process was launched. However, 14 years later, a fire broke out and the building completely burned out. It was restored, the chiming clock was returned to its place, and the interior was rebuilt according to the drawings made personally by Emperor Nicholas I. The main building of the Izhevsk plant took its present form by the middle of the 19th century and has since become a visible symbol of the city of Russian gunsmiths. Here the production of the machine invented by Mikhail Kalashnikov began.
Mikhail Kalashnikov’s ideas formed the basis of many successful weapons developed around the world. This, for example, is the Finnish Sako Rk 95 TP assault rifle and the Valmet 62/76 assault rifle on whose basis the Israeli Galil was designed. In India, the INSAS small arms system has been adopted. Modern bullpup designs are also perfectly combined with AK design, for example, the domestic three-barrel Pribor-3B and the Chinese Norinco Type 86S.
The picture shows the assembly section of the Izhevsk plant conveyor. Lovely girls in colorful aprons are completing the most formidable small arms of our time. Their faces are concentrated, and the great designer can be sure that they will not miss even the slightest flaw.
