AK-47 Inventor Airlifted to Moscow

June 23, 2013

The Emergency Situations Ministry has sent a medically equipped aircraft to bring the 93-year-old creator of the AK-47 assault rifle to Moscow for treatment.

A ministry spokeswoman said Sunday that doctors would accompany Mikhail Kalashnikov on the flight to Moscow from his home in Izhevsk, about 1,000 kilometers to the east of the capital.

Kalashnikov spent two weeks in an Izhevsk cardiology clinic in May.

The AK-47 is the world's most popular firearm with an estimated 100 million spread worldwide. Its name stands for "Avtomat Kalashnikova," or Kalashnikov's automatic, and the year it went into production.

Kalashnikov continued working at least into his 80s as chief designer of Izhmash, the plant in Izhevsk that first built the AK-47.

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