Come on Baby Light My Fire!

Itzhevsk Arsenal Museum, Russia

An article on the BBC website has brought a whole new meaning to the words “fire” wood. 

An inhabitant of the Russian village of Udmurtia bought some crates with the aim of using them for firewood but discovered that, with this innocent purchase he had also gained his own armoury!  Some of the crates contained Kalashnikov rifles and parts!!

The man who had bought 64 crates off the back of a lorry, discovered he had 79 Kalashnikov rifles and parts in total.  Thankfully he was totally honest and reported this treasure trove to a local policeman who put into action a thorough investigation as to how they had found their way into the public domain. 

The investigations unearthed that the army issue rifles had been delivered for scrap to Izhmash arms plant in Izhevsk, the crates had then be used for collecting rubbish before the lorry driver, working for a private firm, had been tasked with transporting the rubbish to a local dump.  However, on the journey to the waste disposal site he thought he could make a few roubles on the side and sold off the crates thinking they had all been empty!  Amongst this stock (plus lock and barrel!) were rifles, magazines and other rifle parts.

Unfortunately the powers that be are not entirely satisfied with the explanation and a fuller investigation is underway to decide whether these rifles were in fact thrown out accidentally or whether there’s a more sinister reason for them being in the crates.  It’s now being considered that perhaps the weapons were being smuggled through to an organisation who would consequently sell them off illegally.

It’s known that the crates were initially taken to the high security installation so it seems extremely unlikely the weapons would have been overlooked.  If they were overlooked then I suspect the boss of the installation may well find himself fired from his position as well as being under fire from prosecutors!!

By way of a bit of background.  The Kalashnikov rifle was developed by one Mikhail Kalashnikov who was born in 1919.  He had 18 siblings!  In 1938 just prior to the second world war he was conscripted into the notorious Red Army and became a tank driver and mechanic, eventually being elevated to the rank of Senior Sergeant.  He was injured in 1941 during the second world war and, during his six months in hospital recuperating, he spoke to some of his comrades who stressed they were dissatisfied with the current weapons that the army were issuing.  So Kalashnikov set about designing a new sub machine gun.  Unfortunately it was dismissed by the services but it could instantly be seen that Kalashnikov had the potential to produce something out of the ordinary and so began his rifle designing career, culminating in his “claim to fame”, the well respected, internationally renowned Kalashnikov.

It’ll certainly be interesting to learn whether this discovery was just down to negligence or indeed whether the arms were illegally destined for some far flung battle zone!