Rissian Folk Music: Instruments, Songs and Traditions

Russian Folk Music in Brief

“Rissian folk music” is really Russian folk music — “Rissian” is just a common misspelling that brings many readers here, so this guide sticks to the genuine tradition. Its core is vocal: village songs sung solo or in groups with rich, improvised harmonies. Around the singing grew a family of instruments — the balalaika, gusli, domra, garmon and bayan — and genres ranging from epic ballads and ritual songs to the cheeky chastushka and the khorovod round dance. In the nineteenth century, composers from Glinka to Tchaikovsky and, later, Stravinsky borrowed these melodies and made them world-famous.

The Instruments

Balalaika

The balalaika (балалайка, ba-la-LAI-ka) is instantly recognisable: a triangular wooden body, a long neck and, usually, three strings, played by strumming or plucking. Folk balalaikas were simple, varied instruments. In the late 1880s the musician Vasily Andreyev worked with craftsmen to standardise the balalaika into a family of sizes, from the small prima to the huge contrabass, and founded an ensemble that became the Great Russian Orchestra. His balalaika orchestras toured abroad and turned a peasant instrument into a concert one.

Gusli

The gusli (гусли, GUS-li) is a plucked zither and the oldest Russian instrument on record, mentioned in medieval chronicles and byliny (epic songs). Archaeologists have found early examples in Veliky Novgorod. The legendary Novgorod minstrel Sadko is a gusli player who charms the Sea King with his music — a story Rimsky-Korsakov turned into an opera. Gusli come in wing-shaped, helmet-shaped and table-shaped forms, and players are called guslyary.

Domra

The domra (домра, DOM-ra) is a round-bodied, long-necked lute played with a pick. It was used by skomorokhi, the wandering minstrels and entertainers of medieval Russia, but it disappeared from use and was reconstructed by Andreyev’s circle around 1896. Today three- and four-string domras carry the melodies in Russian folk orchestras alongside balalaikas.

Garmon and Bayan

The accordion arrived in Russia in the nineteenth century and quickly became the life of every village party. The garmon (гармонь, gar-MON’), or garmoshka, is a small diatonic button accordion — the classic accompaniment for chastushki and dancing. The bayan (баян, ba-YAN) is a larger, fully chromatic button accordion that developed in the early twentieth century and is named after Boyan, the legendary bard mentioned in The Tale of Igor’s Campaign. The bayan is taught in music schools and conservatoires and has a serious concert repertoire.

Pipes, Horns and Spoons

Other traditional instruments include the zhaleika (a reed pipe with a horn bell), the svirel (a wooden flute), the rozhok (a shepherd’s wooden horn), the kugikly (panpipes) and the percussion of lozhki — painted wooden spoons clacked together, a crowd favourite at folk concerts.

Song Genres

Byliny: Epic Songs

Byliny (былины) are long sung narratives about heroes (bogatyri) such as Ilya Muromets and Dobrynya Nikitich, set in the world of Kievan Rus’. They survived longest in the Russian North, where collectors in the nineteenth century still recorded them from village singers.

Protyazhnaya Pesnya: The Drawn-Out Song

The protyazhnaya (протяжная, pra-TYAZH-na-ya) is a slow, lyrical song in which single syllables are stretched over many notes. Sung by a group, it often features podgoloski — improvised secondary voices weaving around the melody — producing the distinctive, open village harmony. Themes are love, parting, hardship and the landscape.

Ritual and Calendar Songs

Songs marked the year and the life cycle: carols (kolyadki) at Christmas, spring “calling” songs (vesnyanki, zaklichki), Maslenitsa and Kupala songs, harvest songs, lullabies, laments and a whole cycle of wedding songs. You can read about the festivals themselves in our article on Russian spring festivals, and about the wedding in Russian wedding traditions.

Chastushki

Chastushki are short, fast, rhyming songs — usually four lines — that spread through villages and factory towns from the late nineteenth century. They are sung to a repeating tune, often on the garmon, and invented on the spot: teasing a sweetheart, mocking the local boss, commenting on news. Chastushki competitions, where singers trade verses, are still part of folk festivals, and the form’s sharp humour made it a vehicle for political jokes throughout the twentieth century.

Khorovod and Folk Dance

The khorovod (хоровод, kha-ra-VOT) is a round dance: participants hold hands or link arms and move in a circle, line or winding chain while singing. Khorovods were danced in spring and summer on village greens and at festivals such as Trinity and Kupala. Other dances are more athletic — the barynya, the trepak and the squat-kicking prisyadka that audiences associate with Russian folk ensembles. Our page on the “Rissian twist” explains how that search term relates to both an ab exercise and Russian dance.

Folk Choirs and Ensembles

In the twentieth century folk music moved onto the concert stage. The Pyatnitsky Choir, founded in 1910 by Mitrofan Pyatnitsky with peasant singers from the Voronezh and Ryazan regions, became the model for professional folk choirs. The Alexandrov Ensemble (the Red Army Choir, founded 1928) made songs such as “Kalinka” famous abroad. Soloists such as Lidia Ruslanova and Lyudmila Zykina became national stars for their folk and folk-style songs.

Several “folk songs” known worldwide actually have authors. “Kalinka” was composed in 1860 by Ivan Larionov; “Korobeiniki” (“The Peddlers”) sets a poem by Nikolai Nekrasov and is best known today as the Tetris theme; “Katyusha” (1938) is a Soviet song by Matvey Blanter and Mikhail Isakovsky. Genuine traditional songs include the “Song of the Volga Boatmen” (“Эй, ухнем”), published by Mily Balakirev in his 1866 collection, and “Во поле берёза стояла” (“In the Field a Birch Tree Stood”).

The late Soviet period and after also saw a revival of authentic village singing. Dmitri Pokrovsky’s ensemble, founded in 1973, learned songs directly from elderly village singers and performed them without polished choral arrangements — an approach that inspired many younger groups.

Folk Music in Classical Music

Russian classical music grew up listening to folk song.

• Mikhail Glinka built his orchestral fantasy Kamarinskaya (1848) on two folk tunes, a wedding song and a dance song. Tchaikovsky later remarked that the whole Russian symphonic school was contained in it, “as the whole oak is in the acorn.”
• The Five (the “Mighty Handful”) — Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Cui — made folk melody central to a national style. Rimsky-Korsakov published a collection of one hundred Russian folk songs (1877) and used folk tunes throughout his operas.
• Pyotr Tchaikovsky quoted “In the Field a Birch Tree Stood” in the finale of his Symphony No. 4, based the famous Andante cantabile of his String Quartet No. 1 on a folk song, and used a folk tune in the 1812 Overture.
• Igor Stravinsky wove folk melodies into The Firebird (1910) and Petrushka (1911), set at a Maslenitsa fair; The Rite of Spring (1913) evokes pagan Russian ritual and borrows folk melodies, including the famous bassoon opening, which is based on a Lithuanian folk tune; and Les Noces (1923) re-imagines a Russian peasant wedding.

Where to Hear It Today

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the most famous Russian folk instrument?

The balalaika, a long-necked lute with a triangular body and usually three strings, is the best-known Russian folk instrument worldwide. The gusli, a type of zither, is the oldest.

What are chastushki?

Chastushki (частушки, chas-TUSH-ki) are short, fast, usually humorous four-line rhymed songs, often improvised and sung to the accompaniment of a garmon or balalaika. They became popular in villages in the late nineteenth century and often poke fun at love, work, politics or local life.

Is “Kalinka” a real folk song?

“Kalinka” is written in folk style but has a known author: it was composed in 1860 by Ivan Larionov. It was later popularised by folk choirs and military ensembles and is now widely treated as a Russian folk song.