IZHEVSK, December 26, 20:58 /ITAR-TASS/. Kalashnikov Corporation will do its utmost for ‘fixing and booking the name of Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov for Russia and for the city of Izhevsk’ and it won’t permit unlicensed manufacturing of his assault rifles by other countries, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said at a meeting with the personnel of the new enterprise on Thursday.
The meeting started with a minute's silence to mourn the death of the legendary arms designer who lived all his life in Izhevsk, a city located about 1,200 kilometres to the east of Moscow.
“All of us understand that Kalashnikov is a legendary name,” Rogozin said. “It will go on living without the man himself. The name will represent our country and it is also the name of the enterprise that will continue developing.”
He was confident that “there will be industrial growth and more perfect equipment, and the economic welfare of the people working at these enterprises will grow.”
The corporation that was set up on the basis of a merger of two Izhevsk plants -- Izhmash and Izmekh -- is to modernise its machinery and to streamline the parallel production of non-military and sporting rifles, Rogozin said.
A new manufacturing entity entirely unrelated to firearms may appear in the groundwork of the Kalashnikov corporation. “The production should be marked by high precision, top-notch technologies and reliability in spite of being focused on weaponry manufacturing,” the deputy prime minister said.
The Kalashnikov corporation remains the largest Russian inventor and manufacturer of assault automatic and sniper rifles, guided cannon projectiles and a wide assortment of non-military weapons which are hunting rifles, sporting guns, machines and tools. Its produce is exported to 27 countries including the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy.