Kalashnikov Gets $80 Russian Pension
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MOSCOW — President Boris N. Yeltsin has granted a monthly pension of $80 to the rifle designer whose name became a byword from Vietnam to the plains of Central Europe--Alexei Kalashnikov.
Yeltsin’s administration said the 74-year-old inventor of the Kalashnikov rifle would receive a payment of 145,000 rubles, equivalent to 10 times the minimum wage, for “special services to the Motherland.”
The pension is considerably higher than average, but low by world standards for a man who designed guns that revolutionized the world arms market. A standard Kalashnikov rifle sells now for about $300 on the Moscow black market.
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