“It was employed by the armies of dozens of countries, and incorporated in several national flags. But the AK47 also became a symbol of revolution around the world. … It’s comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture as well as reliable and easy to maintain in the field. It became the most widely used assault rifle in the world.
Yet Kalashnikov, although honoured in Russia, made very little money from his gun and once complained he would have been financially better off designing a lawnmower.”