January 2, 2014
Managing editor Neil Godbout
Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher both died in 2013 but neither of them produced the most significant obituary of 2013.
That distinction belongs to Mikhail Kalashnikov, who died on the Monday before Christmas, at age 94.
It can easily be argued that it is Kalashnikov, not Mandela, who played a more significant role in African affairs during the past 50 years.
Just look at the flag of Mozambique. Kalashnikov's invention is featured prominently on it.
Only gun enthusiasts and historians recognize Kalashnikov's name but even the most weapons-illiterate person knows of the gun that bears his name - the AK-47.
According to C.J. Chivers, author of The Gun, the definitive history of the AK-47, and the writer of a Kalashnikov obituary in the New York Times, the "Automatic by Kalashnikov 1947" and its descendants influenced the second half of the 20th century like no other weapon.
The war in Vietnam might have been a different story if the North Vietnamese hadn't been packing battle-tested and amazingly reliable Kalashnikovs while the American soldiers took the brand-new and hopelessly unreliable M-16s. One of the worst-kept secrets of America's involvement in the Vietnam war is that for most of the conflict, the opposition had better guns.
Kalashnikov, just 28 at the time but a Second World War veteran from fighting on the Eastern Front against the Germans, led a design team that took part in a secret competition to build a new infantry rifle for the Soviet Army.
The weapon he built was not the biggest, the most powerful or the most elegant. Instead, it was built for functionality and simplicity. It worked in all weather conditions, ignorant of heat, cold or humidity. It required little maintenance compared to other guns and its simple construction and few parts made it easy to take it apart and put back together.
And it was cheap.
No Soviet-era invention spread through the world like the Kalahnikov.
As a result, there are an estimated 100 million AK-47s and related rifles in existence, one for every 70 people. It is, by far, the most popular gun in the world. Along with shaping the outcome of the Vietnam conflict, Kalashnikovs are the weapon of choice across Africa, where the acronym AK became known as Africa Killer, for all of the death and suffering caused by it in the last five decades and counting.
Kalashnikovs are also used extensively across the Middle East. The United States took great pleasure in irony of being able to buy them from other countries to arm anti-Soviet fighters in Afghanistan so they could kill Russians with a Russian-made gun. The laughter ended when the Taliban and Al-Qaeda used the same weapons, more than 20 years old but still working great, to fight American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Most of the guns being used in the ongoing Syrian war and the current conflicts in the Congo, the Central African Republic and South Sudan are almost certainly Kalashnikovs.
It's been a handy weapon for various terrorist attacks, too. The Palestinians who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich hid the AK-47s in their duffel bags.
Child soldiers would not have been possible without a deadly weapon light enough and easy enough to use and care for, like the Kalashnikov.
Even in Prince George, AK-47s have made their mark. One was seized in a crack shack bust in 2008, another one was seized after a man fired it at a pickup near Tabor and Fifth Avenue in 2010, and the latest one was picked up from a Hart Highlands home in November.
Kalashnikov's terrible invention not only survives him across the world but also in his homeland. In the 1970s, the Soviets updated the rifle with a smaller, faster cartridge. The AK-74 is the standard issue weapon for Russian soldiers to this day.