Monument to Kalashnikov with a German rifle. An expert told how a drawing of a German weapon ended up on the Kalashnikov monument

“It’s a very small background thing. I'm even surprised 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 an error,” it “can be corrected very easily.”

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

“We are already contacting everyone. We'll find out everything calmly. The biggest negative thing about this is the behavior of the press and the public. Just some kind of bacchanalia. But the question is working. We once made a slightly smaller star on the general’s uniform. 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 are not installing monuments, recommending that “questions should be addressed to the Russian Military Historical Society or to the author of the sculpture, Salavat Shcherbakov.”

Earlier, singer Andrei Makarevich criticized the monument to Kalashnikov, who named his “mediocre, ugly sculpture.” Responding to this statement, the executive director of the Russian Military Historical Society, Vladislav Kononov, published on his Twitter page a photograph of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s daughter, who, according to Kononov, stated that “the dog barks, the caravan moves on.”

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 the millions of people who like it [the Kalashnikov monument],” the sculptor said 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 before 1945. The design allowed for single and semi-automatic fire due to the removal of powder gases. The shooting was carried out with 7.92 mm caliber cartridges. Sighting range was about 500-600 m. The rifle was equipped with a magazine for 30 rounds.

According to one hypothesis, 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 magazine " Military Review" However, the authors of the note indicated that the StG 44 and AK-47 are “completely different” from each other. “If you look at each detail of the machines separately, you will not find anything in common with each other,” they wrote in the 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 the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, who stated that Mikhail Kalashnikov is “[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, who is holding an AK-47 assault rifle. The pedestal depicts the main developments of the gunsmith - various modifications of the Kalashnikov assault rifle and machine gun.

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

Photo: Yuri Pasholok/Facebook

Exists 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 machines are really similar in appearance, but internal structure and the principle of parsing they have many differences.

September 22, 10:46 Sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov said he is ready to make changes to his work, but is not yet sure whether a mistake was actually 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 for now I am confident in the drawings we used to do this, we communicated with the museum, it says AK-47,” Shcherbakov said.

He emphasized that if there was an error in the drawings, changes would be made to the monument. “We will definitely do this, this happens. For example, we understand that according to the portrait the strand is not lying correctly, then we change the monument,” explained the agency’s interlocutor.

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; during the work, some of its details were clarified, for example, the model of the machine gun that Kalashnikov is holding in his hands. A figure is indicated in an artistic composition globe and the image of St. George the Victorious, as symbols of preserving peace and victory “over the forces of evil.”

RIA News"

September 22, 11:28 The executive director of the monument’s customer, the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO), Vladislav Kononov, said that the diagram of a German machine gun will be removed from the monument.

"We want to thank the person who noticed this drawing, because before today We were not experts in the design of automatic machines. And now we pointed this out to the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov. He is on the spot and is going to dismantle this slab, since he and his apprentice really messed something up. It is important to understand that the military historical society is the customer of the monument, and we had only one wish for the weapon - for the model of the machine gun that Mikhail Timofeevich is holding 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 the mistake made through the fault of the sculptor, everyone can see that the StG and the Kalashnikov assault rifle are completely different assault rifles, and it is categorically incorrect to accuse Mikhail Kalashnikov of borrowing,” noted the director of the Russian Military Historical Society.

Agency "Moscow"

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

“This is a very small background thing. I’m even surprised 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 an error,” it “can be corrected very easily.”

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

“We are already in touch with everyone. We’ll 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. But the question is working. We once made a general’s star on his uniform a little smaller. We corrected it “Mistakes happen,” said the sculptor.

The opening of the monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov, authored by Salavat Shcherbakov, seems to have become the main news event of this week. First, we discussed the ethics of installing a monument to the designer of the most common small arms in the world, then switched to the artistic merits and demerits of sculpture. Numerous experts have spoken on the topic, right down to the most important of the main ones. Yuri Loza criticized Andrei Makarevich, who criticized the monument, and practically put an end to this issue.

I don’t really understand what to criticize here

Yuri Loza, singer, composer

But it was not there. Yesterday, military historian Yuri Pasholok discovered a drawing of the German StG-44 assault rifle on a sculptural composition in honor of the Russian designer Mikhail Kalashnikov. It was found on the side surface of the monument next to samples of weapons created by the Soviet designer. What adds evil irony is the ongoing debate on the Internet that Kalashnikov simply stole his design from the Germans, wrested this secret from the German gunsmith Hugo Schmeisser, who worked in captivity, and appropriated it for himself.

Looking for an expert

How could the explosion diagram of a German machine gun end up on the monument? You can do a simple experiment - go to Google, ask for “drawing of a Kalashnikov assault rifle,” look at the pictures, putting “large” in the results, and find that same diagram on the first page of results. If you go to the site, then everything is signed correctly, but if you don’t go in and download it straight away without thinking, you can publicly disgrace yourself. This is what was demonstrated.

But wait a minute, the monument was created by the Rostec state corporation together with the Russian Military Historical Society. Didn't they have a couple of historians to check the resulting monument? Judging by the reports, there were historians and they made models of machine guns and machine guns on a 3D printer. What's the end result? Vladimir Medinsky speaks with pomp about the remarkable historical monument, on which is a drawing of a German assault rifle.

By the way, since we are talking about one of the most favorite topics for debate on the Internet - did Kalashnikov steal the idea of ​​​​an assault rifle from the StG-44? No. And there is a lot of serious evidence of this. Despite the external similarity, inside they are completely different in design. Has Kalashnikov seen the StG-44 and its drawings - of course, he has. There are no weapon designers who create their weapons from scratch, having no idea about their structure, the latest developments and innovations. Do designers look at each other for successful solutions? Of course, the StG-44 also contains a lot of parts spotted from earlier rifles. Among other things, the authorship of Mikhail Kalashnikov also belongs to the RPK (Kalashnikov light machine gun), almost more brilliant invention. It has been used without any major changes since 1961 until now.

And so it will do

It would seem that anyone can make a mistake. Well, they were negligent, didn’t check, the consultants missed the mark, seven nannies have a child without an eye. The problem is that for most of the characters involved, this has already become the norm. On August 23, 2017, on the territory of the Prokhorovskoe Field museum-reserve, the Russian Military Historical Society, chaired by the Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky, erected a stele in honor of the victory of the Red Army over the armored units of the Wehrmacht in the Battle of Kursk.

And there were factual errors in the inscription on the stele. The inscription on it reads "According to the concentration of tanks and aircraft Battle of Kursk has no equal in history. It involved more than 10,000 tanks and self-propelled guns, 6,800 aircraft, 52,000 guns and 3,200,000 people on both sides. Elite German tank units were destroyed in the battle. the latest tanks"Tiger" and "Panther".

However, none of the four divisions in which these tanks were used was destroyed. Yes, they suffered serious damage, but they were defeated only in the spring of 1945. It would seem like a small thing, but this is a monument, the inscription on which will be read by thousands of people.

And there are many such examples. In 2014, the monument “Farewell of a Slav” was unveiled at the Belorussky railway station, which depicted a girl escorting a guy in World War I uniform to the front. And literally a week later a scandal broke out: the heraldic composition “1941” included in the monument turned out to be decorated not only with classical designs Soviet weapons- PPSh-41 submachine gun and light machine gun DP-27, but also two German Mauser 98k rifles.

As you may have guessed, the monument was conceived and created under the patronage of the Russian Military Historical Society, it was cast in bronze by the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov, and opened by Vladimir Medinsky. The rifles were cut down and the correct ones were soldered in their place, but does that make it any easier?

What is written with a pen...

But there was also a reconstruction of the 1941 parade, held on Red Square in November 2016, when trucks and armored cars of the Soviet army

The editor-in-chief of the magazine "Kalashnikov. Weapons, ammunition, equipment" Mikhail Degtyarev told Metro about the connection and differences between the Kalashnikov assault rifle and the German Mkb.42 rifle and why its drawing ended up on the monument to the great Russian gunsmith. According to Degtyarev, this is the result of the inattention of the creators and customers of the monument. And this is the second exactly the same “puncture” by the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov, who previously armed a Soviet soldier with a German carbine in the “Farewell of the Slav” monument at the Belorussky railway station in Moscow. The expert also dispelled all rumors regarding possible plagiarism by Mikhail Kalashnikov of German developments when creating his legendary weapons. We also asked questions to the author of the sculpture himself. Let us remind you that today historian Yuri Pasholok discovered a diagram of the German Mkb.42 rifle on the bas-relief of the monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov.

Shameful inattention.

This is really a drawing of a German machine gun,” says Mikhail Degtyarev. Overall, this is certainly a shame and a scandal. The result of the unprofessional work of a group of sculptors and the customer - the Russian Military Historical Society. It should be noted that the creator of the monument, Salavat Shcherbakov, “distinguished himself” in the patriotic weapons department for the second time. And it’s time to excommunicate him from government orders and patriotic themes. In the case of the “Farewell of a Slav” monument at the Belorussky railway station in Moscow, he managed to cross a Soviet soldier with a German carbine. Then there was also a scandal and the mistake was partially corrected, but now the same rake is happening again.

Answering the question of how the creators of the monument could have stumbled upon a drawing of a German machine gun and mistaken it for a Soviet one, the expert said that this was simply a consequence of inattention. According to the expert, the big problem is that the creators of the monument did not delve into the specifics of weapons at all.

It’s completely understandable how a non-professional could come across this image, I’m sure Chief Editor magazine "Kalashnikov. Weapons, ammunition, equipment". There are a lot of discussions on the Internet about the primacy and secondary nature of weapons of this period - the 40s of the last century. And the fact that in one place there could be, conditionally, illustrations of a Kalashnikov assault rifle of the first releases and a diagram of a Mkb.42 rifle is not surprising. There are plenty of such compilations. And given the fact that these images were not subjected to professional examination, the sculptors themselves, as their “performance” at the Belorussky railway station showed even now, do not want to delve into the specifics of the weapons. These drawings seemed similar to them, and if they opened material about the AK, then that means it is it. I am one hundred percent absolutely sure that they just opened some website and took the image from there. Otherwise, they should be in prison, in my opinion.

Son of his class.

We also touched upon the topic of the myth that Mikhail Kalashnikov “spied” the idea for his weapon from the Germans, and the legendary Soviet machine gun itself could be plagiarism. The expert considers this version completely untenable. He gives the example of a car body type: the creation of a car cannot be considered plagiarism. Vehicle a certain shape, since they still differ in the “filling”.

This is absolute nonsense, I really don’t recommend that amateurs read the fabrications on this topic of the same non-professionals,” says Degtyarev. You need to read the works of real gunsmiths. I will explain to you the similarity between the Mkb.42 and the Kalashnikov assault rifle using a clear example. Once upon a time, a type of automobile body “sedan” appeared, which is characterized by four wheels, the presence of a hood, a horizontal trunk and the presence of four doors. And then the first sedan appeared and the rest after it, they are also sedans. Only they have a completely different engine, a different transmission, a different braking system, and so on. But the presence of four wheels certainly unites them all.

Thus, the German machine gun, mistakenly depicted on the monument, simply gave rise to this class of weapons, says Degtyarev. And the legendary AK must be compared with other Soviet analogues, with which it competed at the stage of creation. An exhibition at the Artillery Museum of St. Petersburg is dedicated to this.

And the Mkb.42 and Sturmgewehr 44* are class-forming products,” explains the specialist. The Germans were the first to make weapons with this concept. All subsequent ones were followers of this class. And the decision to create Soviet weapons in this class was not made by Kalashnikov. And Kalashnikov should be compared not with Sturmgewehr, but with dozens of others Soviet developments in this class that non-specialists simply do not know. An exhibition on this topic has now opened at the Artillery Museum of St. Petersburg. It's called "On the Way to the AK-47", which collects various domestic products that preceded the Kalashnikov assault rifle. Here you need to compare them with each other. AK simply surpassed them all in terms of the totality of qualities.

The sculptor's word.

Note that according to latest messages sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov, the author of the monument to gunsmith Mikhail Kalashnikov, is ready to correct the bas-relief of the monument after a conversation with historian Yuri Pasholok, who discovered an error in the composition.

Metro contacted Shcherbakov and asked if it was true that this was the second monument he had made where the image was mistakenly used German weapons instead of the Soviet one.

“I think this is all uninteresting and nonsense,” says Shcherbakov, complaining that the phone does not have any charge left for a long conversation. — The words “similar” and “curiosity” are there. There’s no need for this at all, well, in general, I’m not interested. So let me not answer.

This is not nonsense, but it takes up very little space and is easily corrected and has nothing to do with the press,” explains the sculptor. There is a specific error and it is being fixed. This is just a working moment and has nothing to do with politics. I'm surprised by the interest of the press. Either she has nothing to do, or her political views are so raging...

* - StG 44 (German: Sturmgewehr 44 - assault rifle 1944) is a German assault rifle developed during World War II. About 450 thousand pieces were produced. Among the machines modern type became the first development to be mass produced. It differs from submachine guns (PPSh, etc.) of the Second World War in its significantly longer aimed firing range, primarily due to the use of the so-called intermediate cartridge, more powerful and with better ballistics than pistol cartridges used in submachine guns.

However, due to the profanity with which the blogger expresses his indignation at the historical ignorance of the sculptor, “NI” has no right to reproduce the text of the blog in full.

“You can enlarge and compare in Photoshop - everything is repeated there exactly down to the millimeter. That is, yes, the engraving was absolutely exactly removed from this picture.The only trouble is that the picture shows the assembly diagram of the German MKb.42. You can look at encyclopedia of weapons. But the military community was in charge of the work on the monument!” writes the blogger.

However, there is no need to be surprised. Especially after the sensational mistakes in postcards and posters and billboards that were put up for the anniversary of the Victory throughout the country.

“Don’t say it was them by accident. For this you have to beat him, painfully and publicly. These are sculptor boys, damn it!” - Pashalok wrote on his Facebook page.

A monument to small arms designer Mikhail Kalashnikov and his assault rifle was unveiled in the capital on Gunsmith's Day, which is celebrated on September 19. The monument appeared in the city center, at the intersection of Sadovaya-Karetnaya, Dolgorukovskaya and Oruzheyny Lane streets. The author of the sculpture was folk artist Russia Salavat Shcherbakov.

It is possible that such an overlap with a machine gun is not accidental. According to one of the popular versions, the German StG-44 rifle became the prototype for complete or partial copying during the development of the AK. Arguments in favor of this version include: external resemblance guns and the fact that the Kalashnikov assault rifle appeared precisely at the time when a group of leading German gunsmiths was working in Izhevsk. However, experts refute the version that Mikhail Kalashnikov borrowed ideas from StG designer Hugo Schmeisser. Firstly, because in both versions of the weapon there were no fundamentally innovative elements; they were all known from late XIX- beginning of the 20th century. The novelty of these systems lay in the concept of a weapon chambered for an intermediate cartridge between a pistol and a rifle-machine-gun cartridge; the AK also surpassed the German model in terms of reliability, so there can be no question of any copying. Another argument in favor of the inconsistency of the version is the fact that the AK was developed in conditions of strict secrecy and the involvement of German specialists was impossible. Another assumption is based on borrowing - supposedly a prototype Soviet machine gun and the German rifle became the Czechoslovak rifle ZK-420.

There is a hypothesis that does not detract from the talent of the Soviet gunsmith Kalashnikov, but directs him in a slightly different direction. According to it, Mikhail Kalashnikov did not invent anything - he studied the systems and details of the most successful types of small arms, refined, improved some functions and competently combined them, designing the legendary AK-47. It was Kalashnikov who selected and tested best combinations elements, looked for ways to connect and introduced productive ideas. Therefore, if he cannot be called an inventor in its pure form, then, without a doubt, he remains the creator of the Kalashnikov assault rifle.

BY THE WAY

The Russian Military Historical Society will remove the diagram of the German StG 44 assault rifle from the monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov on the Garden Ring in Moscow. agency "Moscow" Executive Director of RVIO Vladislav Kononov. He said that the sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov and his apprentice “got something wrong.” According to him, RVIO made a requirement only for the weapon that Kalashnikov holds in his hands - an assault rifle of his own design, Kononov called the rest "a flight of creative imagination." “It’s a very small background thing. I'm even surprised how they saw her. We took it from sources. And where we took it, it says “Kalashnikov assault rifle.” Something from the Internet,” Shcherbakov told RBC. According to Kononov, such an error only emphasizes how different the AK is from the StG 44, and that accusations of Kalashnikov borrowing the design are “categorically false.”