MOSCOW -- With a sprinkle of holy water and a protester condemning the late Mikhail Kalashnikov as a "manufacturer of death," Russian authorities have unveiled a monument to the designer of the widely used AK-47 assault rifle.
Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky and the head of state-run military-industrial conglomerate Rostec were on hand for the dedication of the monument to Kalashnikov on the Garden Ring road in central Moscow on September 19.
The statue -- not far from monuments to renowned poets Vladimir Mayakovsky and Aleksandr Pushkin -- was unveiled by Kalashnikov's daughter, Yelena Kalashnikova.
Minutes before the ceremony began, a man unfurled a sign saying, "the manufacturer of weapons is a manufacturer of death." He was quickly detained by police and taken away from the site.
The weapon Kalashnikov invented is the most widely used assault rifle in the world and has been fired in nearly every conflict around the globe for the last 50 years.
There are estimated to be as many as 200 million Kalashnikov rifles around the world.
"Mikhail Kalashnikov is an embodiment of the best features of a Russian person -- extraordinary natural giftedness, simplicity, honesty, organizational talent," Medinsky said, adding that "the Kalashnikov assault rifle is truly...a cultural brand of Russia."
The head of Russia's Udmurtia region, Aleksandr Brechalov, spoke at the ceremony, praising Kalashnikov for his contribution to "Russia's glory and defense."
Kalashnikov lived and worked for many years in the capital of Udmurtia, Izhevsk, where Kalashnikov assault rifles are still made.
A Russian Orthodox priest then prayed for Kalashnikov and sprinkled the monument with water sanctified by the church.
But Kalashnikov -- who was born into a peasant family during the civil war that followed the Bolshevik Revolution and died in 2013 at the age of 94 -- voiced mixed feelings about his achievements and his legacy late in life.
Several months before his death, he wrote a letter to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in which he said: "The pain in my soul is unbearable.
"I keep asking myself the same unsolvable question: If my assault rifle took people's lives that means that I...am responsible for people's deaths."
Medinsky presented plans to Putin for the Kalashnikov statue in September 2016 during a tour of the Kalashnikov Group's headquarters in Izhevsk.
The project was backed by the Russian Military-Historical Society -- which is chaired by Medinsky -- and by Rostec, whose CEO is Putin ally Sergei Chemezov. Rostec is the majority owner of Kalashnikov.
The monument was unveiled on a state-mandated professional holiday honoring Russian arms makers going back to tsarist times.
Kremlin critics say that Putin, who has involved Russia in wars in Syria and Ukraine and touts Soviet and imperial-era battlefield achievements to promote patriotism, focuses on military affairs to draw attention away from domestic troubles.
