Drawing of a German rifle on the monument to Kalashnikov. Schematic of a German rifle will be removed from the Kalashnikov monument. Small arms of the Wehrmacht

On the recently opened monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov in Moscow, a diagram of the German StG 44 assault rifle was carved. Yuri Pasholok, editor of Rolling Wheels magazine, drew attention to this. "Just don't say that it's them by accident. You have to beat for this, it hurts and in public. These are sculptor boys, damn it!" — wrote Pasholok on his Facebook page.

Photo: Yuri Pasholok/Facebook

There is a historical myth according to which Kalashnikov copied his assault rifle from the German StG 44 rifle. This rifle was developed in 1942 by designer Hugo Schmeisser. Both automata are really similar in appearance, but they have many differences in the internal structure and principle of parsing.

September 22, 10:46 Sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov said he was ready to make changes to his work, but so far he is not sure whether a mistake was really made.

"We cannot yet find a specialist who claims that this drawing is not an AK-47. I will be really grateful to him if he tells me where the mistake was made. But while I am confident in the drawings on which we did this, we talked with the museum, it says AK-47," Shcherbakov said.

He stressed that if there was still an error in the drawings, changes would be made to the monument. “We will definitely do this, it happens. For example, we understand that a strand does not lie like that in a portrait, then we change the monument,” the agency’s interlocutor explained.

The monument was unveiled on Tuesday at the intersection of Sadovaya-Karetnaya and Dolgorukovskaya streets in Moscow. The height of the monument was 7.5 meters; in the course of work, some of its details were clarified, for example, the model of the machine gun that Kalashnikov is holding in his hands. In the artistic composition, the figure of the globe and the image of St. George the Victorious are indicated as symbols of peace and victory "over the forces of evil."

RIA News"

September 22, 11:28 am Vladislav Kononov, executive director of the customer of the monument of the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), said that the scheme of the German machine gun would be removed from the monument.

"We want to thank the person who noticed this drawing, because until today we were not experts in the construction of automatic machines. And now we have pointed this out to the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov. He is on site and is going to dismantle this slab, since he and his apprentice It is important to understand that the military historical society is the customer of the monument, and we had only one wish for weapons - for the model of the machine gun that Mikhail Timofeevich holds in his hands. Everything else is a flight of creative imagination of the sculptor and his assistants, so let them figure it out, they will now correct this mistake," Kononov said.

In addition, as Kononov explained, the incident refutes the myth that M. Kalashnikov was not an independent designer, but relied on the developments of the German designer Hugo Schmeisser.

“And thanks to a mistake made through the fault of the sculptor, everyone who wants to see that the StG and the Kalashnikov assault rifle are completely different assault rifles, and it is categorically wrong to accuse Mikhail Kalashnikov of borrowing,” the director of the RVIO noted.

Agency "Moscow"

Salavat Shcherbakov, the author of the Kalashnikov monument, admitted in a conversation with RBC that a mistake “could have crept into the project.”

“This is a very small background thing. I even wonder how they saw it. We took it from sources. And where we took it, it says “Kalashnikov assault rifle”. Something from the Internet,” the sculptor explained.

Shcherbakov also noted that "if there is a mistake," then it "is corrected very easily."

The sculptor said that he and his colleagues are now trying to contact the expert who reported the error. “There is no political reason that one of us slipped this,” Shcherbakov stressed.

“We are already contacting everyone. We will calmly find out everything. The biggest negative thing about this is the behavior of the press and the public. It’s just some kind of bacchanalia. And the question is a worker. . Mistakes happen," said the sculptor.

“It's a very small background thing. I even wonder how they saw her. We took it from sources. And where we took it, it says "Kalashnikov assault rifle." Something from the Internet,” the sculptor explained.

Shcherbakov also noted that "if there is a mistake," then it "is corrected very easily."

The sculptor said that he and his colleagues are now trying to contact the expert who reported the error. “There is no political reason that one of us slipped this,” Shcherbakov stressed.

“We are already in contact with everyone. Let's calmly find out. The biggest negative thing about this is the behavior of the press and the public. Just some bacchanalia. And the question is a worker. We once made a star a little smaller for a general on shoulder straps. We fixed it. Mistakes happen,” the sculptor said.

The sculptor then could not explain to RBC what caused the mistake, assuring that there was no malicious intent, and the young team "tried very hard."

The Ministry of Culture of RBC stated that they were not engaged in the installation of monuments, recommending "to address questions to the Russian Military Historical Society or to the author of the sculpture Salavat Shcherbakov."

Earlier, singer Andrey Makarevich criticized the monument to Kalashnikov, named his "talentless, ugly sculpture". Responding to this statement, the executive director of the Russian Military Historical Society, Vladislav Kononov, posted on his Twitter page a photo of Mikhail Kalashnikov's daughter, who, according to Kononov, said that "the dog is barking, the caravan is moving."

Shcherbakov himself called criticism from Makarevich "unethical."

“If it was a normal conversation with arguments, that’s one thing, but when a person just barked, as they say, it’s disrespectful not only to me, but also to millions of people who like it [the Kalashnikov monument],” the sculptor in a conversation with RBC correspondent.

The Sturmgewehr 44 rifle was developed in 1943 by designer Hugo Schmeisser. In total, more than 400 thousand of these rifles were produced until 1945. The design made it possible to conduct single and semi-automatic fire due to the removal of powder gases. Shooting was carried out with cartridges of 7.92 mm caliber. The aiming range was about 500-600 m. The rifle was equipped with a magazine for 30 rounds.

According to one of the hypotheses, the Kalashnikov assault rifle is a copy of the StG 44 rifle. “Rumors of plagiarism are also fueled by the fact that after the war, more than 50 samples of the StG 44 rifle were taken to the city of Izhevsk, where the AK-47 was actually created, for technical disassembly,” wrote in the journal "Military Review". However, the authors of the note pointed out that the StG 44 and AK-47 are "completely different" from each other. “If we consider each detail of the machines separately, then you will not find anything in common with each other,” they wrote in a note.

Monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov on September 19 at the intersection of Sadovaya-Karetnaya and Dolgorukovskaya streets. Its author was the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov. The monument was opened, among other things, by Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, who said that Mikhail Kalashnikov is "[the inventor Ivan] Kulibin of the 20th century" and is "a cultural brand of Russia."

The 9.8 m high monument represents the figure of Mikhail Kalashnikov holding an AK-47 assault rifle in his hands. The main developments of the gunsmith are depicted on the pedestal - various modifications of the Kalashnikov assault rifle and machine gun.

Of course, we are no longer surprised by anything, but on the monument to Kalashnikov, opened in Moscow, they placed a diagram of the German STG-44 machine gun. Historian Yuri Pashalok drew attention to this.

The building that housed the "sharazhka" where Hugo Schmeisser worked from 1945 to 1952. In 1953 he died, and all "Kalashnikov's inventions" ceased.

From the memoirs of Hugo Schmeisser:


“If it weren’t for this moron Misha Kalashnikov, who always got under our feet and prevented everyone from working, we would have invented the AK-47 not in 1952, but in 1947, as planned.
There was nothing worse and more harmful for the engineering bureau than this arrogant cretin who always climbed into our drawings with his bast shoes. Otto twice tried to strangle him, Hans - to beat him with a T-square, and Fritz - to stab him with a pair of compasses. The blockhead did not understand that he was interfering with everyone. I did my best to reassure my friends in misfortune: at least we were warm and fed, unlike our comrades at the logging site. The turning point was 1951, when Misha went on a long drinking binge: Albert came up with the idea of ​​giving him alcohol to drink, in which we washed the springs of test specimens. Realizing that with the help of vodka we can easily get rid of him, I, reluctantly, stole 12 liters in the laboratory, and ordered them to be handed over to Mikhail. We had nothing to clean our test specimens, but we were spared his presence. Now he showed up at the bureau once a month, unshaven and scary as hell, with trembling hands, demanding his eternal chekushka. We gave him a new can and escorted him out. By the end of the year, the test copy was ready. Misha was brought to the shooting in a children's sleigh, drunk and playing an accordion.

Another scandal erupted around the monument by the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov. Claims arose against the author after the historian Yuri Pasholok noticed on his Facebook page that the composition does not show a diagram of a Russian machine gun, but a German assault rifle MKb.42.

In the comments of the radio station "Moscow speaking", the sculptor said: if the information about the error in the image of the drawings is confirmed, he is ready to make changes.

“We are waiting for specifics and a specific specialist. So far, we have not been contacted directly,” he said. According to Shcherbakov, in order to clarify the situation, he plans to contact the historian, who drew attention to one of the "suspicious" drawings.

“Most likely, the drawing is simply closed there by a machine gun lying on top, and maybe he didn’t consider it,” the sculptor suggested.

At the same time, he said: he would not want the issue of specific details, which are not in the foreground, to become political.

The author of the sculptural composition also spoke about how the schemes were selected. He noted that if the claims about the image of the drawing of the German rifle are confirmed, then it will be difficult to find a specific culprit, because he worked with different specialists, the NTV.Ru website writes.

This sculptural composition is a five-meter figure of a gunsmith Kalashnikov on a 4-meter pedestal with the legendary AK in his hands. Behind there is an image of the globe and St. George, striking a snake with a spear, and at the foot of the monument to the patron saint of Moscow are diagrams of weapons. On one of them, the historian revealed a drawing of MKb.42.

The Historian Who Spotted the Mistake After the Scandal Erupted on his Facebook partially justified Shcherbakov. According to him, "the sculptor in this case is the performer and is not obliged to know the type of machine gun and drawings." In addition, the historian writes in response to media requests for comment, "a question, first of all, to those people who accepted the final version."

On the afternoon of September 22, it became known that Shcherbakov arrived at the Kalashnikov monument to dismantle the drawing of a German machine gun. At the same time, the executive director of the Russian Military Historical Society, Vladislav Kononov, thanked the person who noticed the erroneous drawing.

According to Kononov, Shcherbakov is already in place and is dismantling the stove. "Because indeed, according to experts, this is a scheme of German weapons," he said.

Kononov also said that the Military Historical Society is the customer of the monument. However, it regulated only the model of the machine gun in the hands of Kalashnikov, and other design details - "this is a flight of the sculptor's creative imagination." In addition, Kononov hopes that the mistake made will help debunk the myth about Kalashnikov borrowing ideas from foreign colleagues, Gazeta.Ru writes.

This is not the first scandal associated with the sculptures of Salavat Shcherbakov. So, in 2014, at the composition "Farewell of the Slav", which was solemnly opened at the Belorussky railway station, the veterans were amazed to find the German Mauser 98.

Soon, and Shcherbakov explained: they wanted to depict the Mosin rifle on the monument, but for some unknown reason an error occurred.

Another mistake has crept into the commemorative inscription on the sculpture to Alexander I, which stands next to Red Square. Among the cannons, muskets and sabers of the 19th century, one can see the flash hider and front sight of modern weapons, very similar to the AK-74 assault rifle.

As for the monument to Kalashnikov, after its opening, Shcherbakov had to deal with some cultural figures who criticized this composition.

Military historian Yuri Pasholok closely examined the monument Mikhail Kalashnikov, opened on September 19 in the center of Moscow, and found drawings of the German assault rifle StG 44 (Sturmgewehr 44), developed by Hugo Schmeisser in 1944. The historian immediately sounded the alarm on social networks - and it's no wonder what a drawing of a German rifle can do on a monument to the great Soviet designer?

Federal news agency turned to the editor-in-chief of the Kalashnikov magazine, a military expert, for a comment on this whole situation Mikhail Degtyarev.

“Firstly, the monument does not show a diagram of Sturmgewehr 44, as they write about it on the Web, but MKb.42 (H), but this does not change much. This is just a slightly different model of weapons of the same time period, also produced in Nazi Germany. What we see is the result of the collective unprofessionalism of the customer of the monument and its executor. At the same time, the performer is a sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov- scored for the second time. At the Belorussky railway station there is already his monument “Farewell of the Slav”, where the Soviet soldier has a Mauser rifle in his hands, and not a Mosin rifle. Shcherbakov worked in a traditional manner for himself, and RVIO showed unprofessionalism as a customer, ”the expert said in an interview with a FAN correspondent.

Mikhail Degtyarev hopes that the error will be corrected in the near future. “In no case should the sculptor be relieved of guilt, given that this is already his second mistake with Soviet weapons on patriotic monuments,” he sums up.

Nadezhda Usmanova, head of the information policy department of the Russian Military Historical Society, told the FAN that her organization was not involved in expert support of the process of creating the monument.

“Of course, first of all, questions should be addressed to the sculptor. RVIO acted as the initiator and customer of the erection of this monument, but the order was executed by Salavat Aleksandrovich Shcherbakov. He was in direct contact with the Design Bureau (Concern "Kalashnikov" - approx. FAN). On the part of the RVIO, there were mainly only wishes for the figure and the weapon that the designer holds in his hands: this is one of the first prototypes of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, as far as I know, it is not even called yet AK, but MT. We are not experts in weapons, we have a slightly different specialization. Therefore, we did not thoroughly check such things. This is a sculptor's flight of fancy and his area of ​​responsibility,” Usmanova said.

Military historian Yuri Pasholok, who was the first to report errors in the design of the monument, is absolutely right, adds Usmanova. The appearance of a German drawing on a monument to a Soviet designer is an unfortunate mistake, and it must be corrected.

“RVIO has already turned to the sculptor with a request. He decided to dismantle the plate on which the drawing was depicted, not to leave it in place. Too many explanations need to be given every time, whether this is an automatic machine or not. As far as we know, dismantling is underway right now. Salavat Alexandrovich is at the facility and is solving this issue,” she sums up.

The situation seems all the more controversial, given the widespread myth on the Internet that Kalashnikov allegedly copied his famous machine gun from the German Schmeisser model. Blogosphere experts have already debunked this "hypothesis", giving a lot of arguments in favor of why Schmeisser could not have been involved in the invention of the famous AK. Historical documents have shown that Soviet designers generally did not have a particularly high opinion of their German counterpart. Usmanova notes that the mistake made in the design of the monument stimulated the revival of the discussion on this issue, and therefore also involuntarily helped to expose the annoying myth.