Blum, Mikhail Nikolaevich

Mikhail Nikolaevich Blum was born on June 13 (26), 1907 in Vladivostok in the family of a military doctor Nikolai Eduardovich and Vera Dmitrievna Blumov. Grandfather Michael, a native of Saxony, was a pharmacist in Kiev. He spent his childhood in Kiev, and after the death of his father in 1918 he returned to the Far East with his mother and brother. He was fond of weapons already in childhood. From the age of fourteen he worked as a laborer, loader and draftsman. He studied at the University of Vladivostok in 1927, at the same time in the Vladivostok House of the Red Army began working as a shooting instructor and the head of an arms workshop, in 1928-1929 - head of the hunting grounds of the Vladivostok Union of Hunters ^{[1] [2]} .

In 1929, he invented the small-caliber automatic rifle. In November 1929 he was drafted into the Red Army, where he was appointed head of weapons workshops, and in January 1930 he was sent to the main artillery directorate of the Red Army, where Blum had the opportunity to realize his inventions. The single-shot small-caliber sports pistol created during this period was used for several years. On the basis of a small-caliber rifle, he developed a small-caliber machine gun , adopted as a training weapon ^[2] .

He worked with Fedorov and Degtyarev at the Kovrov arms factory . For the development of a rapid-fire drum machine gun, M.N. Tukhachevsky personally rewarded Blum with a motorcycle. After the arrest and execution of Tukhachevsky, the specialists who worked under him were repressed or fired. Blum lost the opportunity to develop weapons, moved to Moscow and worked as a shooting instructor. He returned to design work already during the war, this period was marked by the development of a powerful anti-tank gun ^[2] .

Since 1947, along with the development of military weapons, M.N. Blum was also engaged in civilian weapons and ammunition. He developed a set of hunting cartridges for rifled weapons based on the available components, but with smaller calibers ^{[1] [2] [3]} , and later a long-range hunting rifle ^[2] .

Since 1950, M.N. Blum was a permanent expert on hunting weapons and ammunition at the VDNH of the USSR, and later became a member of the committee of the Council of VDNH of the USSR. He was a member of the scientific and technical council for hunting weapons of the Glavpriroda of the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR and the Ministry of Defense Industry of the USSR. Author of several books and articles. Awards M.N. Blum transferred to the Military History Museum in St. Petersburg. ^[2] .

Mikhail Nikolayevich met his future wife, Antonina Nikolaevna Sokolova (Blum) in Vladivostok, where the former Smolyanka studied at the faculty of foreign languages. The English-Russian weapons-technical dictionary, published in 1947, was compiled jointly by the spouses ^[2] .

MN Blum collected weapons and was an excellent shooter, was on the hunt ^[2] .

Two sons were born in the family: Mikhail in 1933 in Kolomna and Alexei in 1937 in Kovrov . From early childhood, his father taught children to shoot from different types of weapons ^[2] . Both sons became famous gunsmiths and hunters.

• English-Russian weapons-technical dictionary / Under. ed. engineer-major Chemen K.V .. - M .: Gostekhizdat, 1947. - 160 p.
• Blum M.N. Small-caliber machine guns. - M .: Redisdat of the Central Council of Osoaviahim of the USSR, 1940 .-- 140 p.
• Blum M. N. Sports weapon. - M .: Publishing House DOSAAF, 1954. - 120 p.
• Blum M.N. Self-loading rifle of a sample of 1940. - Chelyabinsk: OGIZ Chelyabgiz, 1941. - 28 p.
• Blum M.N., Blum M.M. Hunting rifled weapons: almanac // Hunting open spaces. - 1960. - No. 15. - S. 156-165.