Russian blogger Ilya Varlamov got a chance recently to visit the Kalashnikov Concern in the Ural Mountain town of Izhevsk to take a tour of the Motherland’s great arms works. Founded originally in 1807 by Tsar Alexander I to build muskets for his immense army gearing up to fight Napoleon, the plant has remained in production for over two centuries, with minor upgrades.

Besides the traditional AK-series rifles (in their most modern AK-103 and AK-12 variants shown below, hold your horses), the plant also makes Saiga-branded rifles and shotguns for export and Molot “animal farm” rifles for civilian sales in Russia.

Without further…

Casting molds

…which produce castings

The multimillion ruble upgrade is bringing in new, modern CNC equipment

…And doing away with old gear dating back to Stalin’s era

Dust cover, nyet

What’s the Russian word for OSHA? Oh, wait.

Ah yessss

Recognize anything?

For the rest of Ilya’s amazing images, check out his blog (in Russian)