On the evening of 25 December, after soldiers brought his coffin to the church, about 8,000 people came to say goodbye to legendary small-arms designer Lieutenant General Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov at St Michael Cathedral in Izhevsk (Udmurt Republic).
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The honour guard consisted of cadets from the Kazan Higher Military Command School (KVVKU).
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The coffin with Kalashnikov’s body was in the centre of the church, draped with the Russian national flag, and his decorations were at its foot.
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Services lasted until 22.00 MSK. Services continued on 26 December, the church funeral was from 10.00 to 13.00 MSK; after that, there was a secular ceremony.
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People crowded in to pay their last respects to the great man. Many waited in queue for four hours. Kalashnikov’s son Viktor Mikhailovich thanked everyone who came personally.
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Yelena Mikhailovna Kalashnikova, the daughter of the legendary small-arms designer (right) and his son Viktor Mikhailovich Kalashnikov say their farewells to their father at St Michael Cathedral in Izhevsk.
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Kalashnikov’s decorations were at the foot of the coffin.
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People came singly and in groups to bid farewell to the legendary designer, they laid down flowers and wreaths as tributes.
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Aleksandr Volkov (centre), Head of the Udmurt Republic, at the funeral services for Mikhail Kalashnikov at St Michael Cathedral in Izhevsk.
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The Moscow funeral of Mikhail Kalashnikov will be 27 December at the Federal Military Memorial Complex in Mytishchi Raion, in the Moscow Oblast suburbs. Kalashnikov’s coffin went by plane from Izhevsk to Moscow for burial on the evening of 26 December, his funeral procession passed in front of places where he lived and worked in Izhevsk.
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On Friday, the burial of legendary gunsmith Mikhail Kalashnikov took place at the Federal Military Memorial Complex in Mytishchi Raion, in the Moscow Oblast suburbs. The coffin was on a gun carriage as it went down the central alleyway of the complex.
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President Vladimir Putin sat with the Kalashnikov family at the services.
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The farewell in the main memorial hall.
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Deputy Defence Minister Army General Arkady Bakhin said at the funeral, “Today, we say goodbye to a remarkable man, a man who’s a symbol of Russia”.
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The farewell in the main memorial hall.
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The honour guard at the ceremony.
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Kalashnikov’s body lying in state in the memorial hall.
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Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu attended the ceremony.
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A military band played proper music in honour of Mikhail Timofeyevich’s memory.
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Kalashnikov’s daughter Yelena Mikhailovna said that her father devoted his life to working for the benefit of the motherland, “he couldn’t do otherwise”.
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On his last journey, volleys from his iconic AK-47 assault rifle accompanied the procession.
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Metropolitan Yuvenaly Poyarkov of Krutitsy and Kolomna (left) served the religious part of the funeral.
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Mikhail Kalashnikov was in intensive care since 17 November. Mikhail Timofeyevich died Monday 23 December 2013 in his 95th year.
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Note well that Metropolitan Yuvenaly Poyarkov served the Church end of the funeral in Moscow. Yuvenaly is second only to HH in the hierarchy at the Centre (he’s the effectual “Metropolitan of Moscow”). This shows you the stature of Mikhail Timofeyevich. The West mostly ignored his passing…
Note well that Viktor Mikhailovich thanked EVERYONE who came personally in Izhevsk… now, that’s CHRISTIAN. The well-known loudmouths here in America ought to hang their heads in shame. They have no clue about Christianity (and some of them are in the Church, sadly enough). President Putin didn’t come to the Izhevsk services… this allowed the Kalashnikov family to take centre-stage, as is right and proper. It doesn’t matter if you like President Putin or not, he’s a genuine and decent human being… unlike so many Western “leaders”.
This is the future… a creative and fruitful union of the Red and the Christian… may God grant me to see it in full flower.
For more on Kalashnikov’s death and the state memorials for him, click here
26-27 December 2013
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/photolents/20131226/986540585_986459220.html
http://ria.ru/photolents/20131227/986876171_986869360.html
Voices from Russia 
Bah, Humbug Department… Merry Christmas From the Members of Congress Who Voted to Gut Food Stamps
Tags: Blake Farenthold, BMD Posterart, Christian ethics, Christmas, Consistent life ethic, ethical orientation, ethics, Gus Bilirakis, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Jim Bridenstine, John Shimkus, Justin Amash, Kevin Yoder, Merry Christmas, moral dilemma, moral stance, morality, morals, political commentary, politics, Republican, Richard Dawkins, right-wing, Russia
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Editor’s Foreword:
Mark down the names mentioned below. They’re all godless hypocrites who stand in opposition to what all major leaders in Catholicism and Orthodoxy teach on social justice and our responsibility to the poor and needy. Both Orthodoxy and Catholicism BLESS single-payer healthcare. HH thinks that the Cuban healthcare system rocks… it gives Cuba a lower infant mortality rate than the USA has (and a similar life expectancy)… thanks to the greed and selfishness of those named below. Is there something much worse than the open antitheism of Richard Dawkins? Yes! I’d say that the smarmy mawkish religiosity of those who wave “Pro-Life” signs, but who vote against Food Stamps, single-payer healthcare, and social welfare is consummate duplicity and vile deceit. They DO vote for the promiscuous use of the death penalty, wars in foreign parts, force-feeding the Pentagon, and untrammelled trafficking in firearms; besides which, most of them wish to treat unions exactly as the Nazis did. God has a very cold corner of Hell waiting for them if they don’t repent and grasp the onion. There’s much ill in our crank world… but some things are too much of a muchness. This is one such…
BMD
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In September, 217 members of Congress voted to cut food stamp availability dramatically, on top of a scheduled rollback that kicked in on 1 November. However, they’d like to wish you Merry Christmas, and they ask you to remember the spirit of the season. We looked at every Christmas-related tweet from that group of legislators. The tweets ranged from the ostentatiously religious…
to the goofily personal:
However, most of the members of Congress were a bit more formulaic.
Congress members mentioning Jesus:
Congress members citing The Gospel according to St Luke 2.11 (“Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you”) explicitly:
Merry Christmas #NY27. I hope you and your families have a safe and joyful holiday. pic.twitter.com/DOrvxbrveC Rep Chris Collins (@RepChrisCollins) 25 December 2013
Congress members simply wishing you a “Merry Christmas”:
Congress members offering pictures or videos of things:
Congress members recognising service members:
Merry Christmas from my family to yours! May you enjoy a wonderful holiday with your loved ones. pic.twitter.com/YWpjnhVEqg Jeff Denham (@RepJeffDenham) 25 December 2013
Congress members offering greetings “from my family to yours”:
Two particular categories were sparsely populated.
Congress members who own reindeer farms and wrote stories about their reindeer farms for the local paper:
Rep Kerry Bentivolio
Congress members who voted for food stamp cuts who mentioned remembering the needy:
26 December 2013
Philip Bump
The Wire
http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013/12/merry-christmas-members-congress-who-want-gut-food-stamps/356492/
Editor’s Afterword:
Orthodox Christians should note the following names:
They’re the Orthodox Christian members of the House (there are no US Senators). I list them in order of political orientation. Issa and Bilirakis are Hard Right, Amash is Right of Centre, Sarbanes is Centre-Left (but leaning to Left to Centre), and Titus is Left of Centre. My Spectrum is Hard Right to Right of Centre to Centre-Left to Left of Centre. There’s only one Leftist in the Congress, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. The old “Centre-Right” (moderate Republicans and “Dixiecrats”) is gone. No Republicans are to the left of “Right of Centre”. Likewise, no Democrats are to the right of “Centre-Left”. That’s why it’s so difficult to reach a governing compromise. In earlier years, moderate Republicans and Dixiecrats would hammer out a mutually-satisfactory deal… good examples of such would be Gerald Ford, Jacob Javits, Sam Nunn, Harry S Truman, and Estes Kefauver. This class in gone… it died out after Slobberin’ Ronnie (not all at once, but there’s not any left as of 2013).
The konvertsy go gaga over the first three named… they’re “Pro-Life!” In a pig’s arse… Issa and Bilirakis are Hard Right warmongers, whilst Amash is a heartless laissez-faire cheerleader. I looked into things and what I found out is that Sarbanes and Titus want a reduction in abortions, but wish to use a strategy of increasing access to contraception, sex education, and upping aid to pregnant moms. This is in accord with Church teaching… so, all of the konvertsy Sturm und Drang about these two is uninformed and out of line. The Church doesn’t take the Catholic approach… we believe that God reforms sinners… not an Inquisition or a Crusade. The Church tells us to “save your own soul and thousands will be saved about you”.
By the way, President Obama is Centre-Left… he’s not even Left of Centre. The sad thing is that he’s appealing to a Centre-Right that no longer exists. Oh, one last thing before I go… the big champions of government-sponsored healthcare were Otto von Bismarck and Graf Pyotr Stolypin… both of whom were actual Traditional Conservatives, NOT Neoliberal Hard Right Free Market Radicals (mislabelled “conservatives” in the Anglosphere). Interesting, eh? In the end, the Left is more Conservative than the self-labelled “conservatives”. Who woulda thunk it…
BMD