Culture Kalashnikov

The death of Mikhail Kalashnikov at the age of 94 is a cause of sadness to me, not in the same way or league as Nelson Mandela (a sure fire way to get loads of Facebook likes - thereby upping your online profile - was to post a eulogy to the great man in the 24 hours after his death. I eschewed such activity, confining myself to clicking 'Like' and the odd comment here and there), but for a man behind a gun that had a culture all of its own.
Even typing 'Kalas' into Blogger brings up the suggestion Kalashnikov demonstrating its ubiquity over the last three score decades. It is estimated that 100 million AK-47s alone are in circulation (around half of them not the full genuine article), with a million produced every year.  The popularity stems from the incredible simplicity of construction and assembly/disassembly - ideal for cash-strapped insurgencies in remote fastnesses, even to the extent of being used against the Soviets and their protégés in the Cold War.
I remember walking into a standard Russian shop unit in Moscow that sold cameras, batteries and AK-74s! The AK-74s were the upgrade for AK-47s, retaining the simplicity but improving the accuracy.  Nonetheless, AK-47s have a renown that no improvement can supersede, illustrated in the film Jackie Brown when Samuel L. Jackson's character waxed lyrical over bikini-clad babes toting the gun.
My fondness for Kalashnikov himself stems from my discovery that there was a designer who lent his name to the weapon rather than an impressive sounding Soviet generic name.  This was just over a decade ago when a vodka brand was released bearing his name and capitalising on the notoriety.  One day I will drink that vodka and toast Mikhail.
Kalashnikov never lamented his invention - though he would prefer to invent agricultural machinery, his primary mission was to defend the motherland and if his genius lent itself to weaponry in that cause, so be it.  Though his design has killed millions of people and been far more destructive than atomic and nuclear weapons, not for him the doubt and handwringing of Oppenheimer.  Not that he did not express sorrow for all the deaths that practitioners using his design caused, uncontrolled distribution enabling such a devastatingly reliable rifle to fall into the wrong hands; it was, however, the responsibility of politicians to find peaceful solutions for if his gun was not used, another one would be.  It is slightly disingenuous giving the side that wielded more of his guns an advantage that would preclude negotiations but Kalashnikov made no money from it and he could hardly be blamed for how his superiors ensured the propagation of the AK-47 especially.  He said he slept well and now he has entered the greatest sleep of all.