USSR history, ak-47 and others

[supraneurotoxin]

I just had the most interesting conversation with a Albanian gentlman I'm acqainted with.
I'm a car salesman, and I was sitting at my desk oogling gun porn, when one of the mechanics I'm freindly with came up to chat. he was interested in purchasing a gun for home defense, and since I happen to have a mossberg 500 in my truckrolleyes, I brought him out to show it to him. he told me about his father owning several italian, german and russian guns when he was a boy in Albania, and how they lived 40 miles from a factory that built ak-47s. the factory he says was built by the chinese(history? anyone familar with this?) and how he carried one when he was in the Albanian army.
he also told me how when the USSR fell, his father was forced to turn all his guns into the govornment to be destroyed.
I asked him about the guns his father owned, he didn't know the makes or calibers, but there were some sporting rifles, and some milsurp from WWI and WWII.
I plan to spend more time with him, the history he speaks of is very interesting. I want to show him pictures of rifles and pistols from the time period and location he was talking about, and maybe I can find out what kind of guns he was refering to.

 

[tinygnat219]

Albania used to be a xenophobic communist backwater. They drifted from Russia's to China's sphere of influence during the cold war which would explain the AK-47 Factory.
Neat stories. Check out Albania sometime online, they are one of the few countries that openly applauded Bush when he visited. They remember the oppression of Communism and they like the US.

 

[matt87]

Plenty of lakes in Albania. Shame/sure his dad didn't have any 'boating accidents'...

 

[CWL]

Communist China was always an exporter of technology & "luxury" items to other communist countries.

Prior to the collapse of the Soviets, all European communist countries had highly centralized economies (=failed economies) so they had to supplement by importing heavily. Communist China was one of the few countries that was willing and able to trade with these cash-poor countries. In the late 1980's, I hung out with several Rumanian engineers who were sent to China to help build trains, this was part of an exchange for cotton t-shirts and shoes to Rumania!

 

[supraneurotoxin]

so, which ak variant was manufactured in albania around the cold war years? saiga? wasr? I know nothing about the history of the country or much about the history of the weapon.

 

[theinvisibleheart]

chinese variant of ak

very similar to Russian AKM.

 

[igorts]

"Check out Albania sometime online, they are one of the few countries that openly applauded Bush when he visited."

And they stole a watch from his hand
see on youtube.