Monument to Kalashnikov with a German rifle. Why did a German machine gun appear on the Kalashnikov monument?

“There’s nothing German there! What nonsense! Everything is fine, everything is correct,” the Moscow City Duma Commission on Monumental Art told the newspaper VZGLYAD. In other words, they refused to acknowledge the scandalous mistake made in the monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov. Meanwhile, it is this commission that, as it turns out, is to blame for this mistake. But she's not the only one.

On Friday afternoon, sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov admitted that an error “could have crept” into the composition of his monument to gunsmith Mikhail Kalashnikov, which was inaugurated this week in central Moscow. The sculptor made it clear that one of his assistants had made a mistake. “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, adding that this error does not have any political implications and can be corrected very easily.

“No one from our team could have had any malicious intent to slip anything, they could only have made a mistake,” the sculptor assured. Let us remember that on Friday morning the sculptor refused to admit the mistake that the monument depicts a drawing of a German rifle, and not an AK-47.

The first to point out the error in the drawing on the slab at the foot of the monument was the military history editor of Rolling Wheels magazine, historian Yuri Pasholok. He posted on Facebook photo of the monument and scan of a drawing of the German machine gun designed by Hugo Schmeisser Sturmgewehr (StG 44). That is, on the bas-relief there is an assembly diagram not of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, but of a rifle produced in Nazi Germany in 1944.

“Don’t say it was them by accident. For this you have to beat him, painfully and in public,” says Pasholok. In an interview with Business FM, the historian said that it was not the sculptor who was responsible for the mistake, but those “who signed” when approving the project. “They had a museum as a consultant where they got all these machines from, but for some reason no one contacted them,” Pasholok said.

The mistake looks all the more scandalous because the opinion is actively being circulated on social networks that it is not Mikhail Kalashnikov, but Hugo Schmeisser, who is the author of the legendary machine gun. According to this version, a German gunsmith developed this type of weapon while being a prisoner of war in the USSR after the war.

Thus, it is now clear where the mistake on the monument actually came from - it was made by one of the sculptor’s assistants, who downloaded a diagram of the weapon from the Internet, mistaking it for the design of a Kalashnikov assault rifle. The sculptor himself, out of ignorance of the subject, included the diagram in the final version of the monument. But who exactly made the decision to install a monument depicting the German assault rifle? What is the procedure for installing monuments in Moscow and who monitors their maintenance?

“First, an application is submitted to the Moscow city ​​council,” Deputy Chairman of the Moscow City Duma Commission on Monumental Art, Honored Architect of Russia Lev Lavrenov told the newspaper VZGLYAD. – It is also sent to the Moscow Committee for Architecture and Architecture so that they can determine the location, to the department cultural heritage Moscow government and our commission. Someone must provide financial support. In this case, it was a proposal from the Russian Military Historical Society, and they also finance it.”

The process of installing monuments in Moscow is lengthy. Rostec and RVIO came up with an initiative for a monument to Kalashnikov back in December 2014.

“We are considering the application at the commission. – said Lavrenov. “We are considering both the general plan of the installation, the sculpture itself, its sketch, and all the parameters. We agreed on everything. And after we have agreed, the installation is approved by the Moscow City Duma at a general meeting.”

Oddly enough, although not only Shcherbakov himself, but also RVIO, had already repented for the mistake, Lavrenov firmly told the newspaper VZGLYAD:

“There’s nothing German there! What nonsense! I think everything is fine, everything is correct.” The thing is that both the one and the other machine gun, and the third, and the tenth - their similarity is that they shoot. Appearance sometimes similar too. But the essence of what’s inside the machine? Sorry, this is not reflected in the sculpture. I don’t see anything wrong with this.”

Commenting on the sculptor’s confession, the deputy chairman of the commission attributed it to the fact that Shcherbakov was “probably very frightened” by the press. Lavrenov also emphasized that there are historians on their commission, and “they also checked everything.”

But the Moscow City Duma itself did not deny it.

“The final decision on the installation of the monument is made at a meeting of the Moscow City Duma,” Moscow City Duma deputy, deputy chairman of the commission on culture and mass communications Anton Paleev confirmed to the newspaper VZGLYAD. He assured that no mistakes were mentioned at the meeting, otherwise the deputies, of course, would not have approved the project.

“The Moscow City Duma and the Culture Commission are agreeing on the idea of ​​installing a monument, that is, in principle, whether to erect a monument to Kalashnikov or not. And then the commission for monumental art and the Moscow government are most actively involved directly in this monument,” explained Paleev. According to him, all the details and parameters of the monument are checked, and not by one person - the Commission on Monumental Art, which approves the sketch, is responsible for such things.

In theory, there was no way he should have gone through all the examinations without anyone noticing such a mistake, he pointed out. “I can’t imagine how this is possible,” the interlocutor summed up.

However, this happened, and in general it is clear that it is precisely the commission for monumental art that bears responsibility for the scandal.

The Kalashnikov concern, part of Rostec, expressed its readiness to advise the authors of the monument on possible mistakes when creating the sculpture. How

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 that was not the case. 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), perhaps a more ingenious 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 Red Army’s victory 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

On a sculptural composition dedicated to the Soviet designer Mikhail Kalashnikov, a drawing of the German StG 44 automatic rifle was found. A historian drew attention to the diagram of the Third Reich assault rifle on the bas-relief on Facebook. “Don’t say it was them by accident. For this you have to beat him, painfully and publicly. These are sculptor boys, damn it!” reads the caption to the published photo.

The StG 44 assault rifle (Sturmgewehr 44, also known as MP 43/MP 44) was developed by designer Hugo Schmeisser during World War II. Until 1945, about 420 thousand copies were manufactured.

“We have no information about the error yet. We depict seven machine guns, the eighth machine gun is in the hands of. In addition, we depict plumbing and drawing tools. If there is an error, we will correct it. The most important thing now is to separate what is happening from political chatter,” he said.

According to Shcherbakov, he would like the historian Yuri Pasholok, who discovered the error on the monument, to personally contact the sculptor, “so that I understand what and where the error is.” “At the same time, someone says that this specialist from social networks actually does not exist. If there is a specialist and he is right, then we will be very grateful and will make certain corrections,” noted the author of the monument.

At the same time, according to Kononov, the fact that the mistake was discovered suggests that the StG and the Kalashnikov assault rifle are “completely different assault rifles, and it is categorically incorrect to accuse Kalashnikov of borrowing”

The monument to Kalashnikov, created by sculptor Salavat Shcherbakov, was solemnly opened at the intersection of Sadovaya-Karetnaya and Dolgorukovskaya streets in the center of Moscow on September 19. The public reaction to the new Moscow landmark turned out to be mixed. Many Muscovites are embarrassed by the figure of the famous weapons designer and are not sure that such individuals should be immortalized. This position was outlined, in particular, by the musician.

At the same time, the artist is confused not only by the ethical side of the issue, but also by the aesthetic one. "OK. Let Kalashnikov. But why such a mediocre, ugly sculpture?” says the musician. According to him, even in Soviet times“this idol” would not have passed the artistic council. “Well, why are we spoiling our city like this, disgracing ourselves in front of the whole world?” he concluded.

Makarevich was supported by his colleague, the singer who performed last year at the Eurovision 2016 contest. “I can’t remain silent... it’s disgusting to erect such a monument in the center of the capital. A man with a machine gun in his hands! All the authorities care so much about psychological state children, constantly introducing new bans, and immediately erects a monument to Kalashnikov with an assault rifle in the center! What do we teach children? Fight? Make this picture the Norm!? There are not enough emotions to express indignation,” the artist wrote on his Instagram (original spelling).

“No dancer or singer will listen to the opinion of the sculptor on how he danced or sang. This is a profession, and you don’t need to get involved in it,”

- said Shcherbakov. According to him, even professionals behave modestly and do not absolutize everything as the ultimate truth.

The installation of the monument was timed to coincide with Gunsmith's Day in Russia. The website published a congratulation to the workers of the military-industrial complex from Russian President Vladimir Putin, in which Russian leader also mentioned Kalashnikov. “We are rightfully proud of Russian craftsmen, engineers, designers, whose creative genius created unique, world-famous weapons. In the battle room, heroic story The names of such talented gunsmiths as Pavel Zakhava, Georgy Shpagin, Mikhail Kalashnikov will forever remain in the Fatherland,” the text of the congratulations says.

It is worth noting that the sculpture depicting the world-famous gunsmith installed in Moscow is not the first work on this topic. The previous monument to Kalashnikov was erected in 2015 at the military memorial cemetery in Mytishchi, where the designer was buried after his death in 2013.

Salavat Shcherbakov told Business FM that he was ready to correct the mistake with the machine diagram in the sculptural composition. According to him, there was no malicious intent

Monument to Mikhail Kalashnikov in Moscow. Photo: Valery Sharifulin/TASS

The author of the Kalashnikov monument, unveiled this week, is ready to correct the mistake with the machine gun diagram in the sculptural composition. In an interview with Business FM, Salavat Shcherbakov said that he wants to contact the scientist who discovered the error.

According to the latest data, the Russian Military Historical Society (RVIO) decided to remove the diagram of the German StG 44 assault rifle from the monument. RBC reports this.

The fact that the sculpture contains an assembly diagram of a German Schmeisser instead of an AK-47 diagram was written on his Facebook page by historian, consultant to several leading military museums in Russia, Yuri Pasholok. “Don’t say it was them by accident. You have to be beaten for this,” he noted.

Yuri Pasholok is in no hurry to blame the sculptor himself, but he also does not want to advise the team that worked on the monument. Here's what he said in an interview with Business FM:

Yuri Pasholok historian “He has a consultant, so let them work. All these things are accepted by a whole bunch of commissions. Where it came from is a question directly to the people who took it. Whoever put the signatures is actually responsible, not the sculptor. Their consultants had a museum where they got all these machines, but for some reason no one contacted them. Museum - they were asked for materials, they gave them materials, and then they see this. You see, the following happened: someone wanted an additional circuit diagram for the machine and went to the Internet. The first thing they found was called designer girl syndrome. The goal is not to punish him, but to simply straighten the monument. I saw it by chance, they showed it to me, I looked - it looked familiar, I looked for it - here it is. Any person, even not an expert, will immediately discover this.”

The author of the sculptural composition, People's Artist of Russia Salavat Shcherbakov, commented on the situation in a conversation with Business FM. According to him, an erroneous scheme, if it really refers to German Schmeisser, could have been taken from the Internet. But it’s easy to correct this detail, the main thing is that the media does not inflate a political scandal, he believes.

Salavat Shcherbakovsculptor, People's Artist of Russia“We don’t know now if this is true, because right now we want to meet with the scientist who noticed the error. So far, based on the drawings that we had, we have not yet determined whether there is an error. Second: if this turns out to be an error, we will be very grateful to this specialist, this often happens. We can easily fix it because it is a background fragmentary moment. There are seven machine guns depicted there, they were all taken from the museum, that is, a lot of work. None of our team could have had any malicious intent to slip anything, they could only have made a mistake. I think that this error most likely does not exist, but if it exists, then this is also not a tragedy. But thank you anyway, and we are waiting for this specialist who discovered that if he is our friend and supporter of this topic, the monument, then we will be very glad to meet him and take advantage of his knowledge. Artistic work is quite complex, and we always consult on very different issues, we always immerse ourselves in the material honestly, the machines were taken from a museum in St. Petersburg, seven models - we physically had them, we had access to them, and this is a drawing lying on the drawing board. We could take this drawing from the Internet, for example, it says “AK-47”. But the Internet, we know, is a garbage dump; there could easily be a mistake.”

At the Kalashnikov plant, Business FM confirmed off the record: the diagram on the monument is indeed erroneous. “This is not a design for a Kalashnikov assault rifle,” said an employee of the enterprise.

A similar scandal occurred in 2014 with the monument “Farewell of a Slav” at the Belorussky railway station. The sculptors had to remove from it a model of the German Mauser 98k repeating rifle, which was used by mistake.

Of course, we are no longer surprised by anything, but on the monument to Kalashnikov, unveiled in Moscow, they placed a diagram of the German STG-44 assault rifle. Historian Yuri Pashalok drew attention to this

The building that housed the “sharazhka”, where Hugo Schmeisser worked from 1945 to 1952. In 1953 he died, and all “Kalashnikov’s inventions” stopped

From the memoirs of Hugo Schmeisser:


“If it weren’t for that idiot Misha Kalashnikov, who always got under our feet and prevented everyone from working, we would have invented the AK-47 not in ’52, but in 1947, as planned.
There was nothing worse and more harmful for the engineering bureau than this arrogant cretin, who was always meddling with his bast shoes in our drawings. Otto twice tried to strangle him, Hans tried to beat him with a crossbar, and Fritz tried to stab him with a compass. The blockhead did not understand that he was disturbing everyone. I, as best I could, reassured my friends in misfortune: at least we were warm and fed, unlike our comrades at the logging site. The turning point was 1951, when Misha went on a long drinking binge: Albert came up with the idea of ​​giving him alcohol, in which we washed the springs of test specimens. Realizing that we could easily get rid of him with the help of vodka, I reluctantly stole 12 liters from the laboratory and ordered them to be given to Mikhail. We had nothing to clean our test samples with, but we were spared his presence. Now he appeared at the bureau once a month, unshaven and scary as hell, with shaking hands, demanding his eternal chekushka. We gave him a new can and sent him away. By the end of the year, the test copy was ready. Misha was brought to the shooting in a children’s sleigh, drunk and with an accordion.”