assessing the Kalashnikov legend.
30. Bolotin, Soviet Small Arms and Ammunition, p. 97.
31. Ibid., p. 113.
32. Monetchikov, Istoriya Russkogo Avtomata, p. 24.
33. Broekmeyer, The Russians and Their War, pp. 12–13.
34. Bolotin, Soviet Small Arms and Ammunition, p. 113.
35. Monetchikov, Istoriya Russkogo Avtomata, p. 25.
36. Bolotin, Soviet Small Arms and Ammunition, p. 126. Hogg claims that nine thousand of Fedorov’s avtomats were made, though he did not provide a source. Bolotin cited Soviet archives. His estimate is used here.
37. Bolotin, Soviet Small Arms and Ammunition, pp. 126–27.
38. Ibid., p. 54.
39. Ibid., p. 252. Bolotin provided a list: Tukhachevsky, Uborevich, Dybenko, Kuybyshev, Alksnis, and Unshlicht.
40. Yuri Sergeyev, Tekhnika i Vooruzheniye, No. 12, 1970.
41. Perry Githens, “How Good Are Russian Guns?” Popular Science, March 1951, p. 109.
42. Mikhail Kalashnikov with Elena Joly, The Gun that Changed the World (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2006), p. 3.
43. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 25.
44. Ibid., p. 24.
45. Kalashnikov with Joly, The Gun that Changed the World, p. 4.
46. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 31.
47. Ibid., p. 404.
48. Ibid.
49. The first version is from From a Stranger’s Doorstep, pp. 408–9. The second version is from The Gun That Changed the World, pp. 10–11.
50. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, pp. 412–413.
51. Kalashnikov with Joly, The Gun that Changed the World, p. 26.
52. Ibid., p. 33.
53. Interview of Mikhail Kalashnikov by Nick Paton Walsh, who shared the notes of his interview with the author.
54. Catherine Merridale, Ivan’s War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939–45 (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), p. 84.
55. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 73.
56. Broekmeyer, The Russians and Their War, xiv–xv.
57. Vladimir N. Zhukov, Second Birth, translation by Army Foreign Science and Technology Center (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1974). Originally published by Voyenizdat, Moscow, 1963, p. 58. An official Soviet biography of Kalashnikov. Kalashnikov embraced this biography, and presented it as fact to his first Western biographer. Many passages are demonstrably false or at odds with Kalashnikov’s later accounts.
58. Kalashnikov and Joly, The Gun that Changed the World, p. 19.
59. Ibid., p. 35.
60. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 75.
61. Zhukov, Second Birth, pp. 59–63.
62. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 76.
63. Some sources, particularly in the English language, say Kalashnikov was treated at Kazan. These stories appear apocryphal; the principal sources, including Kalashnikov himself, describe his treatment in Yelets.
64. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, pp. 92–93.
65. Ibid., p. 87.
66. Zhukov, Second Birth, p. 85.
67. Kalashnikov: Oruzhiye, Boyepripasy, Snaryazheniye, Okhota, Sport. Special Issue, 2002, p. 17.
68. From interview of Kalashnikov by Edward Ezell in July 1989. A partial transcript of the interview was published in “Conversations with Kalashnikov,” in the Small Arms World Report, December 1992, p. 5.
69. Zhukov, Second Birth, pp. 108–9.
70. Mikhail Degtyarov, in “Istoki ‘Kalashnikov’” Kalashnikov: Oruzhiye, Boyepripasy, Snaryazheniye, Okhota, Sport. Issue 5, 2003, pp. 6–9. The year of birth of Kalashnikov’s son, Viktor Mikhailovich, is from the museum in Izhevsk.
71. Kalashnikov has refused over the years to discuss the mother of his son, Viktor, saying only that she died when Viktor was young and he then received custody of the boy. The reasons Kalashnikov is otherwise silent on the subject are not clear.
72. Ezell, “Conversations with Kalashnikov,” Small Arms World Report, December 1992, p. 5.
73. M. Novikov, “This is Kalashnikov,” Volksarmee, No. 1, January 1968, p. 9. Volksarmee was the magazine of the National People’s Army, the military of the German Democratic Republic.
74. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 122.
75. Ibid., p. 121.
76. Ibid., p. 132.
77. Ibid., pp. 133–34.
78. Viktor Vlasyuk, “Weapons Designer Vasily Lyuty,” Zerkalo Nedeli, No. 12, March 23–29, 1996. Vlasyuk quotes Lyuty in the section cited. Translated by Viktor Klimenko.
79. Ezell, Small Arms World Report, December 1992, p. 6.
80. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, pp. 237–38.
81. Ibid., p. 216.
82. Kalashnikov with Joly, The Gun that Changed the World, p. 61. Here Kalashnikov said that a year had passed before he returned to the Schurovo polygon for the competitive field tests.
83. Ezell, Kalashnikov: The Arms and the Man, p. 71. A photograph of the disassembled rifle appears on this page; the external shape of the AK-47 is evident, but the guts of the weapon have not yet been worked out.
84. Bolotin, Soviet Small Arms and Ammunition, p. 69, quoting remarks by Kalashnikov published on September 20, 1957, in Krasnaya Zvezda (Red Star), the official newspaper of the Red Army.
85. Kalashnikov with Joly, The Gun that Changed the World, p. 64.
86. Malimon, Otechestvenniye Avtomaty, chapter 9.
87. Ibid.
88. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 220.
89. Ezell, Kalashnikov: The Arms and the Man, p. 72.
90. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 209.
91. Ibid., p. 210.
92. The available sources differ on this point, and Kalashnikov has published inconsistent accounts. Bolotin listed three finalists: Kalashnikov, Bulkin, and Dementyev. The museum in Izhevsk listes four: Kalashnikov, Dementyev, Bulkin, and Sudayev. (The addition of Sudayev appears to be an error; he died in summer 1946, long before the rifles’ field trials. His weapon was used as a control.) To these lists, Kalashnikov has at times added Sphagin and Degtyarev, two of the best-known figures in Soviet arms design.
93. Kalashnikov, From a Stranger’s Doorstep, p. 213.
94. Bolotin, Soviet Small Arms and Ammunition, p. 69, citing Red
