Kalashnikov Gets $80 Russian Pension

President Boris N. Yeltsin has granted a monthly pension of $80 to the rifle designer whose name became a byword from Vietnam to the plains of Central Europe--Alexei Kalashnikov.

Yeltsin’s administration said the 74-year-old inventor of the Kalashnikov rifle would receive a payment of 145,000 rubles, equivalent to 10 times the minimum wage, for “special services to the Motherland.”

The pension is considerably higher than average, but low by world standards for a man who designed guns that revolutionized the world arms market. A standard Kalashnikov rifle sells now for about $300 on the Moscow black market.