In the Soviet Union, the attitude towards weapons in the hands of citizens was ambiguous. On the one hand, it was prohibited. On the other hand, Soviet citizens held weapons in their hands much more often in their lives than modern people. At the same time, in the USSR, especially after the war, the development of hunting culture and related organizations was strongly supported. Of course, representatives of the state nomenklatura, including the general secretaries of the party, also loved to hunt.
Luxuriously decorated with a pattern of flowers and intricate carvings, the hunting rifle was designed and created by the Soviet engineer Leonid Vasilyevich Kurchevsky. In total, several such carbines were made. Almost all of them were donated to members of the Soviet government and today are lost. One carbine was intended for Joseph Stalin. The automatic weapon was not, it used 5.6 mm cartridges as ammunition. The only surviving specimen today is kept in the museum of Izhevsk weapons. However, the carbine did not reach the leader of the peoples ...
The fact is that Leonid Vasilyevich was arrested and convicted in 1937. According to some sources, Kurchevsky was spread at the same time in 1937. According to others, in 1939. The designer was accused of creating unpromising types of weapons and wasting public funds. Of course, the fateful year 1937 really became a dark spot in the history of the Soviet Union. However, it should be noted that Leonid Vasilyevich was a person, to put it mildly, ambiguous.
First, before his arrest in 1937, Kurchevsky was already in a sharashka. In 1924, even before the start of all sorts of repressions, the engineer had already taken organs and was sentenced to 10 years for embezzlement of public funds. State funding was allegedly used to create a helicopter. The car never appeared, and the money disappeared somewhere. In 1929, Kurchevsky was released early. Subsequently, the engineer was engaged in the direction of recoilless guns. Several of his developments were put into service, but even during the Finnish war, Kurchevsky's creations began to be scrapped: weapons and equipment showed themselves extremely badly to them, a significant part of the developments was completely recognized as completely inoperable in real conditions.
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In 1956, after the XX Congress, Kurchevsky was rehabilitated in the course of the anti-Stalinist campaign. Whether the engineer was really to blame, or whether he became a victim of official intrigue and corruption in the NKVD - so far we can only guess. Only the publication of the criminal case against Leonid Vasilyevich can shed light on this issue. However, a number of, including well-known facts about his professional work, already raises many questions.
Continuing the topic, read why the SKS carbine is so popular among hunters these days.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/090421/58519/
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