  Mergers of compact objects may lead to different astrophysical phenomena:
they may provide sources of observable gravitational radiation, and also may be
connected with gamma-ray bursts. Estimate of the rate with which such mergers
take place are based on assumptions about various parameters describing the
binary evolution. The distribution of one of these parameters - the kick
velocity a neutron star receives at birth will strongly influence the number
and orbital parameters of compact objects binaries. We calculate these effect
using population synthesis of binary stars and show that the expected compact
object merger rate changes by a factor of 30 when the kick velocity varies
within its current observational bounds.
