Russian folk instruments:
creation and use

Russian folk musical instruments are objects that peasants and tradesmen have been whistling, gluing, and playing by hand for millennia. They were made from spruce trees growing in their gardens, junipers growing in the forest clearings, cow horns, and goose bones. Archaeology confirms the age of this tradition: written sources describe Slavic musicians as early as the sixth century. Then came frescoes, chronicle prohibitions, peasant handicrafts from the 18th century, and, finally, the concert balalaikas of the early 20th century, which paved the way for folk music to reach the stage.

Below, we examine the main instrument groups — plucked strings, bowed instruments, brass instruments, and percussion instruments. The craftsmanship is discussed separately: the type of wood radically altered the sound, and a mistake by the craftsman could turn a shepherd’s horn into a wheezing trumpet.

Traces in the ground and on the walls

The earliest depiction of Russian musicians is found in the inner tower of St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, founded in 1037. The frescoes depict buffoons with harp, trumpet, and flute, dancers, and a round dance. Similar scenes have been preserved in St. Demetrius Cathedral in Vladimir and on the Novgorod icon "The Sign." The painting is silent. The earth speaks.

Excavations in Veliky Novgorod yielded a 13th-century bone jaw harp — the oldest example of this instrument found in Russia. Fragments of gusli and bows from the 11th – 13th centuries also come from this area. The Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta described Slavic captives with gusli at the end of the sixth century, during the Greek wars with the Avars and Slavs.

The church and secular authorities viewed folk music with caution. Church authors dismissed buffoonery as demonic, and ordered the confiscation and burning of instruments. One sermon contains the command: "Where domras, surnas, gudki, and gusli are found… order those demonic games to be burned." These bans were widespread, and partly for this reason, entire traditions — most notably the buffoon domra — had almost died out by the 18th century.

Master’s materials

The type of wood was crucial. Resonant spruce for the soundboards of concert balalaikas at the turn of the century was imported from the Tambov province, the body was made of maple, and the neck of pear. The maple was selected: luthiers prized "radiata" maple and "bird’s eye" maple with their striking grain.

Village instruments were built using local materials. Horns were carved from juniper, kuvichi were cut from reed, pipes were rolled from birch bark, and the gusli’s ringing quality was derived from white maple, apple, and rowan. Professionals also relied on dried, seasoned wood: all concert instruments were assembled exclusively from high-quality, dry wood.

Bone and iron served the smallest instrument — the jaw harp. Northern peoples — the Khanty, Mansi, Nivkh, and Kets — carved it from bone, Turkic peoples preferred wood, and the Chinese added bamboo.

Gusli

The gusli is a plucked chordophone: a flat box with stretched strings that is placed on the lap. The box acts as a resonator and amplifies the sound; without it, the strings would sing softly and dryly. Bylina gusli were called "yarovchatye" (spring-shaped) because their bodies were carved from sycamore maple.

Three body shapes

Researchers distinguish between wing-shaped, helmet-shaped, and rectangular gusli. Wing-shaped gusli have 5–9 strings and are held close to the chest, resembling a slanted wing. Helmet-shaped gusli, widened at the playing window, provide space for 20–30 strings and allow playing with both hands. Rectangular, table-shaped gusli, rest on a table and extend up to tens of strings — a 19th-century salon style. The strings were made of gut, later switching to metal; voivode and royal gusli were decorated with gilded strings.

The guslar and his fingers

They play while seated, plucking the strings with both hands; the palm is placed on the strings for muting, while the fingertips touch the adjacent strings. Chronicles attributed the mastery of the gusli to Boyan, Sadko, Nightingale Budimirovich, and Dobrynya. Of Boyan, in The Tale of Igor’s Campaign, it is said: "He raised not ten fingers, but like ten swift-winged falcons, to the strings."

The gusli was also loved for its portability: an old song depicts a young man with a rifle on one shoulder and a gusli on the other; according to accounts, as late as the 18th century, almost every soldier carried this instrument. The gusli’s sound is clear and short, like a dram.

Domra

"Erema has a gusli, and Foma has a domra" — a proverb that has preserved the two main instruments of pre-Petrine Rus’. The domra has a semicircular body, a flat soundboard, and three metal strings, which are struck with a bone pick. Its origin is in the East: similar instruments exist among the Tatars, Kalmyks, and Buryats, and, according to a popular theory, it came to Rus’ during the Golden Horde era.

The domra’s primary bearer was the skomorokh. Decrees against "demonic games" in the mid-17th century struck the instrument hardest: in the Russian provinces, it fell almost completely silent, surviving only outside the skomorokh’s settlements. Its revival began in 1896, when musician Vyacheslav Lyashkov picked up the domra and introduced it to the Andreyev circle. Jazz and orchestral influences awaited it in the 20th century.

Balalaika

A triangular body, three strings, and a short, playful tremor — the balalaika is instantly recognizable from the very first beat. Its exact origins are unknown; the earliest written mention dates back to 1688. A half-hour’s work by a carpenter, and the instrument was ready: the folk balalaika was glued together from several flat triangular boards, to which the neck was attached; the triangle made construction easier than with the rounded shell of a domra.

Village balalaika

Peasant balalaikas of the 18th and 19th centuries were made in every other hut, whittled from spruce, birch, and aspen — whatever was available. Two unison strings plus one a fifth higher produced an E-E-A tuning. The sound was staccato and dry; they accompanied dances, ditties, and coachman’s songs. Using added frets, they modernized the old "douchnaya" domra.

Remaking Andreev and Nalimov

In 1888, balalaika player Vasily Andreyev organized the "Circle of Balalaika Lovers" in St. Petersburg and requested instruments of various sizes and timbres for the ensemble. He quickly found a carpenter. From 1890, Semyon Nalimov, a cabinetmaker, began working from Andreyev’s designs, starting with the first prima balalaika.

Nalimov studied the material as he went. At Andreyev’s Maryino estate, he noticed that the doors and windowsills were made of maple — and this maple was used for the treble, alto, bass, and double bass balalaikas. The master craftsman set up his own factory, or rather, a workshop consisting of three rooms: a desk with drawings and models stood in the office. During his life, Nalimov built over three hundred instruments — about 170 balalaikas and 115 domras.

His contemporaries called him "the Russian balalaika Stradivarius." He crafted around 70 instruments for the Great Russian Orchestra, and gave away the plans for concert models to other craftsmen free of charge — balalaikas are still made from them today. His prima balalaika from 1906, serial number 130, survives: a gift from Andreev to the young Nikolai Osipov, which he never parted with for the rest of his life.

Horn and hurdy-gurdy

The bow tradition in Russia predates the balalaika by eight hundred years. Novgorod excavations have yielded balalaikas from the 11th to 13th centuries: pear-shaped bodies, three strings, and a short neck. They played the instrument with the bow resting upright on the knee, with the bow drawn flat across all the strings, creating a discordant, polyphonic sound.

The hurdy-gurdy replicates the idea of the whistle, replacing only the hand with a bow-wheel. A handle turns the rosin wheel, which also rubs the strings; a keyboard mechanism shortens the string and produces a melody. In Rus’, the lyre became popular with traveling singers — kalikas and lirniks — who, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, carried spiritual verses with them through fairs and highways.

The tree that sings

Wind instruments were made from almost anything: cow horn, birch bark, reed, wire, and dozens of wood species. The sound within them evokes a column of air — and here the "secrets" begin, invisible to the naked eye.

Flute

The flute is cut from willow or maple in early spring, when the bark peels off easily. The Russian double flute is a pair of pipes of different lengths with three to six holes; it was called a "pair": the bass pipe "follows," while the thin pipe leads the voice. Both pipes are played alternately, alternating the angles of the flow with the lips.

Zhaleika

The zhaleika is a shepherd’s reed instrument, related to the oboe, only simpler. A reed is cut into a reed or willow tube, and the instrument itself is divided into a pierced playing section at the front and a birch bark or horn bell. The shepherd’s signal served a dual purpose: in the morning, he would drive out the flock with his blast, and in the evening, the zhaleika would sing under the window.

Horn and shepherd’s trumpet

A horn is a tube that flares out at the bottom, typically 40–60 cm long. Each half is planed separately, glued together, the seam is lined with tow, and the whole is tightly covered with birch bark. Holes are punched along the tube, and a cup-like mouthpiece sits on top. The same technology extended shepherd’s trumpets up to one and a half meters: the birch bark was rolled into a giant glass, its sound carrying for kilometers.

The horn’s acoustics were beautifully captured by the ethnographer and musician Nikolai Privalov. He carved a replica of a shepherd’s horn, with the meticulous precision of a merchant, and fitted it with a mouthpiece modeled after an orchestral model. The resulting sound was wailing. A typical village mouthpiece produced a somber wheeze. The key lay in the wood: Privalov was whittling apple wood, while the shepherds carved horns from juniper, and he had no substitute for this wood. One mouthpiece. Different worlds.

Horn players often formed ensembles playing instruments of varying pitches; there’s a well-known story of three horn players who moved to St. Petersburg and continued rehearsing while living beyond the Narvskaya and Moskovskaya outposts. In 2019, the musical culture of Vladimir horn players was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Kugikly

Kugikly, or kuvichki, is a female ceremonial instrument from southwestern Russia. Kursk women held five untied reed pipes of varying lengths and, quickly moving them, blew air into the short and long pipes. Girls played, and they would partner with a Kursk accordionist or piper; in the Kursk region, kuvichki were still used along the Reuti River in the mid-20th century. The sound is sharp, like a whistle.

Bagpipes

The fur of a whole goat’s hide, combined with two pipes — a flute and a bass pipe — produces a continuous hum: the bass pipe hums a single note, while the string pipe carries a melody. The shepherd inflated the fur with his elbow right there in the pasture.

Jew’s harp

The jaw harp looks like a trivial thing: a frame with a flexible reed that is vibrated by a finger or a string. The mouth acts as a resonator, and the larynx and cheeks alter its volume — hence the overtones and the melody. Archaeologists date the oldest Russian jaw harp to the 13th century, discovered in Veliky Novgorod. The instrument itself has changed little over the centuries, and researchers trace its origins to a Mesolithic bow.

The traditions of forging and playing have survived longest among the peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Turkic world: the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is considered one of the world’s leading centers of jaw harp and khomus playing. Iron jaw harps are still forged by hand; a local craftsman polishes the tongue, fine-tuning its flexibility and "buzz" by ear.

Drums from the barn

The Russian peasantry’s striking force evolved from its utensils. These included the drum, the beater, the tambourine, the bell, the box, the spoons, the rattle, the rubel, and the rattle.

Spoons were whittled from maple, with bells attached to the backs; the spoon-maker held a fan of three to five spoons and struck the spoon against another spoon, against his palm, against his knee. A ruble — a grooved board for rolling linen — went to rhythm on its return stroke: a wooden rolling pin was rolled along its edges. The beater hung near the church and served as a call to service long before the bell tower. Rattles made of many birch planks on a cord accompanied the Christmas mummers; the crackling sound carried through the streets before the song. A buffoon supplied a tambourine and bells: mead, a tambourine, and a bear — that was the entire orchestra of the courtyard festivities.

Each region added its own touch. The Kursk region knew violin, zhaleika, and kugikly duets, while Smolensk celebrated violin duets at weddings and parties. The old village violin had three strings instead of four, tuned in fifths or fourths; the violinist sometimes rested it on his knee, as was the custom of a bower.

Orchestra of Russian Folk Instruments

By the end of the 19th century, the orchestral concept of folk sound had evolved, modeled on the symphony orchestra. It was first realized by Andreyev’s circle in 1888; for the ensemble, they built instrument families — prima, seconda, alto, bass, and double bass for balalaikas and domras. In 1919, Boris Troyanovsky and Pyotr Alekseyev assembled a group that would become the Nikolai Osipov Orchestra.

Osipov, a conservatory violinist who began his career on Nalimov’s balalaika, became director of the State Orchestra of Folk Instruments in 1940. He boldly introduced brass and percussion instruments, enriching the timbre and expanding the dynamic range. The composition of the modern folk orchestra is as follows: balalaika section, domra section, button accordions, gusli, percussion, and brass instruments.

The scheme proved infectious. Folk orchestras based on Andreyev’s model emerged in schools, community centers, and garrisons; the balalaika and domra became teaching instruments, complete with instructional methods, a playing school, and sheet music. Long before, the first printed manuals for teaching folk instruments appeared as early as the 19th century.

Tools these days

Concert balalaikas and domras are manufactured in factories and by hand; many workshops still use Nalimov’s designs, which the master himself made available free of charge. Museum collections contain historical examples: the Russian National Museum of Music holds balalaikas made of bird’s-eye maple with a resonant spruce soundboard.

The village life continues as usual. In Yakutia, khomuses are forged commercially. Horn ensembles perform in the Vladimir region, and the chimes of the kugikly are occasionally heard at folk festivals near Kursk. The gusli has returned to classrooms and to the stage — the instrument carried over the shoulders of 18th-century soldiers now stands on a stand in the school band.