Kalashnikov was born in Kurya , Altai Governorate , Russian SFSR , now Altai Krai , Russia , as the seventeenth child of the 19 children of Aleksandra Frolovna Kalashnikova ( née Kaverina ) and Timofey Aleksandrovich Kalashnikov , who were peasants . In 1930 , his father and most of his family were deprived of property and deported to the village of Nizhnyaya Mokhovaya , Tomsk Oblast . In his youth , Mikhail suffered from various illnesses and was on the verge of death at age six . He was attracted to all kinds of machinery , but also wrote poetry , dreaming of becoming a poet . He went on to write six books and continued to write poetry all of his life . Kalashnikov 's parents were peasants , but , after deportation to Tomsk Oblast , had to combine farming with hunting , and thus Mikhail frequently used his father 's rifle in his teens . Kalashnikov continued hunting into his 90s
deported
Dekulakization
Mikhail Kalashnikov