The Kalashnikov Tapes - Part 1: Life Before the AK

This is video is part of a series created from interviews conducted by Edward C. Ezell with Mikhail Kalashnikov in 1989 at the House of Optics in Moscow and at the Museum of Artillery, Engineering & Signal Corp in Leningrad. All the footage is courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Archives. All I have done is try to fix the audio and cut some of the waiting time between tapes out. So otherwise, what you are seeing is entirely unadulterated.
The Kalashnikov Tapes playlist: • The Kalashnikov Tapes
All footage is used with permission from the Smithsonian Institution Archives.

[@Barbaroossa]

Bless you, my glorious child. I'm archiving all of this for posterity.

[@randywatson8347]

The love for engineering is universal. Wonderfull to hear how mr. Kalashnikov persuaded his goal.

[@Shellshock1918]

MK seems like he was such a down-to-Earth guy, very modest. He obviously came from humble means.

[@KinoTechUSA69]

I've heard about this meeting but was never able to find it previously, thank you SO MUCH for uploading these.

[@AA-dn8dj]

Amazing, thanks so much for getting and putting this out.

[@ozo310sk8]

Amazing. Having some beers and watching history on a Saturday night.

[@keb5654]

Thank you anon

[@NEKOUFar]

The fact that his early prototypes were made by women is a crazy historical detail 35:12, and you can see Kalashnikov smiling wryly as that's being explained

[@matt4952]

Thank you for posting these videos!

[@NEKOUFar]

Oh, I didn't know Ezell died like three years after all these videos he filmed

[@anandanurag]

Thank you very much!

[@josephk.4200]

I just wish we had a Russian-English speaker who could help give subtitles.

[@StrangerOman]

Translation was quite on point, missing some minor details, but as Russian native myself and with good English skills I see why this is quite difficult to watch without subtitles. You can feel that tension in the air when you have to listen and expect translation from the language you don't know.

[@randywatson8347]

I turned on the translator CC

[@Chiller01]

Early shaky cam technique.

[@realRainz]

KGB agents sitting on both sides of Kalashnikov

[@Cheka__]

Did Kalashnikov steal the mp 44 design

[@Ingsoc75]

Depends on who you ask.

[@user-di5rm9ee1p]

Nope

[@rozkaz661]

The requirement for an automatic weapon in an intermediate cartrige was put foreward by the army and those requirements were likely influenced by the success of the mp44 but the design of the gun that kalashnikov came up with to meet those requirements was not inspired by the mp44 very much at all. He was quite clearly much more inspired by the operating mechanism of the american m1 garand and kalashnikovs operating system is very similar to a garand turned upside down and shares much less comonality with the mp44. Ak's construction, takedown, operation and controlls do not share much comonality with the german design and despite rumours that captured german engineers helped with the ak the soviets considered them a spying danger and did not disclose any secret information to them or involve them in secret projects like the ak47 was at the time.

[@TheSundayShooter]

Winchester 1907 + M1 Garand + STG-44 = AK

[@MrCarGuy]

​@@rozkaz661German engineers were involved in many secret projects post-war. They were very insecure about it, though

[@Clapperofcheeks5000]

When people talked civilised with each other