Nikolay Fyodorovich Makarov was born in 1916 in the small town of Sasovo that is about 180 miles south from Moscow. His father was a locomotive operator. In 1929, after completing 6 grades of school, Nikolay entered technical school held by mechanical plant in Ryazan. After graduation, he worked as steam engine mechanic in the years of 1931 to 1935. Later he enrolled into yet another technical school in the city of Tula and has graduated in 1941. During the World War II, Nikolay elevated his career from assistant technician all the way to lead engineer on the one of the Soviet defense plants. He was working directly with famous Shpagin (creator of legendary PPSh). In 1945 Makarov accepted position in engineering bureau where he remained until his retirement in 1974. During his long carrier, he has earned numerous prestigious awards and medals for his achievements in Soviet department of defense.

Makarov story began long before its official “birth”. It was necessary to find a substitute to a morally exhausted TT (Tulski Tokarev) pistol. Russian military decided to hold an official content for best pistol design back in 1945. Many talented automatic weapon engineers of that time participated. Amongst them were Igor Rakov, Sergey Korovin, Pavel Voevodin, Fedor Tokarev and other. Nikolay Makarov was still a student at the time. After long deliberations, winning design was awarded to Pavel Voevodin. However, World War II was still gong on and has prevented it from going into production. After the war was over, contest was held once again. This time Makarov’s design took the prize. (I’m kind of glad too, just can’t imagine talking about PV, or Voevodin Pistol.)

Makarov pistol’s caliber and design was inspired by German 9mm round “Ultra”. There was some speculation at the time that Russians “found” inspiration for Makarov design in the desks of occupied Walter plant in Germany.

First line of Makarovs were produced on the Izhevsk factory in 1949 and after vigorous testing full fledged production started in 1952. This pistol became greatest achievement of Nikolay Makarov. He himself explained such a success by enormous amount of labor he has put into design. “I used to work from 8 in the morning until 2-3 at night every day of the week”, wrote Nikolay. He was able to test-fire two to three times as much as his competitors did, thus developing very reliable and trustworthy weapon. Nikolay Makarov also worked on airplane machine guns and antitank missiles. For his participation in Soviet defense as an engineer, he was awarded one of the highest Soviet awards at that time – Hero of Social Labor.

Everyone, or almost everyone heard about Makarov pistol, but that name could have never came to be if it wasn’t for one fortunate event. Even when TT began its service in Soviet army, the search for better pistol was never dismissed. Tulski Tokarev (TT) was suffering from both real and “fabricated” problems. For example it was blamed for inability to shoot out from view slot in the tank. Finally, official request for a better design that was made in 1938. For the longest time Makarov didn’t reach recognition on world market mostly due to it’s non-commercial purpose. After all it was a Soviet military handgun. It is no longer a problem to find Maks. Many countries such as China, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Poland and Checkoslovakia made hundreds of thousands of them.