Rozhok is an ancient Russian folk music wind instrument. According to 18th century descriptions, rozhok producing a very strong and shrill sound was used not only by shepherds at work, but also “in taverns for entertainment” and “in boats to accompany oarsmen’s singing”.

Russian romance means intimate lyrical songs that touch the soul, it is feelings set to music, and poetry that makes one cry and smile. Romance as a music genre is a traditionally Russian type of music creativity: it is in romance that the so-called “mysterious Russian soul” has found ways of expressing its passions. Just recall the famous "Ochi Chyornie" (Black Eyes)!

Svirel is an old folk Russian wind instrument of the end-blown flute type. In the Old Rus’ this instrument was made either of hollow reed or cylindrical wood branches. A legend says that Lel’, son of the Slavic goddess of love Lada was a svirel player. In spring he would make his svirel of birch branches.

As time passed by lots of new music instruments came to be used by folk musicians. Nowadays different styles are in fashion yet there is still hope that interest in traditional Russian music will never ever fade. Traditional folk music instruments have come to be used in lots of modern styles and eclectic ways in recent years.

The folk music instrument treshyotka (translated as rattle) produces a variety of peculiar percussion sounds similar to hand clapping. This originally Russian instrument consisting of a number of wooden plates thread on a string was very popular and widely used in dances during wedding ceremonies.

From time immemorial Eastern Slavs have used bubens. These powerful instruments were most widely exploited by warriors and skomorokhs (wandering minstrel-cum-clowns). Back then all sorts of percussion instruments with drumheads were called buben.

The Russians missed the first wave of interest in Irish music that spread over the world in the 1960s -70s. But then Russia fitted very well into the second wave and is successfully taking part in this international process at present.

Modern Russian pop music owes much to city romance, as well as to Russian people’s song in general. However, when Soviet power came to rule, overall extermination of everything “bourgeois” started in music along with all other spheres.

Country music in Russia has forever become a symbol of something traditionally American. Thus it is little wonder that during Perestroika the Russian people started to reach for this style as embodying a genuine “oversea tidbit”.

It all started in Russia, as usual, with 10 or 15 years of delay. Sprawl of hip-hop culture slow and sure is encompassing territories of the unbounded country despite many obstacles, among them some racist attitudes, conservatism and subjectivity of the Russian population and the huge territory of Russia.

Jazz sprang up in the USSR in the 1920s, when it was flourishing in the USA. The first jazz orchestra of Russia was founded in 1922 in Moscow by poet, translator, dancer and theatre worker Valentin Parnakh and was titled “The RSFSR First Eccentric Orchestra Jazz Band of Valentin Parnakh”.

Yanka Diagileva, a talented female punk-rocker with tragic fate, was one of the brightest figures of the Russian underground music scene of the late 1980s. Her songs, a staggering mixture of Russian folk lamentations, hopelessness and nihilism of punk-rock, and profound message, have come to be classics of the Russian poetical rock.

It was a unique role that Yegor Letov played in Russian poetry and music. His most famous project, the punk-rock band Grazhdanskaya Oborona (Civil Defense) was created to express utterly radical civil standpoints, relentlessly expose all the rot and filth of this world and defend the young minds not inflicted with it yet.

Domra is a Russian folk music instrument with a rounded body and three or four strings played with a mediator. Domra is a prototype of the Russian balalaika. Records of domra can be found in ancient court chronicles and lubok pictures.

The history of Russian folklore and the history of gusli are inseparable. The major part of Russian folklore was performed to the accompaniment of gusli. This instrument used to be present whenever the folks gathered to sing, dance and listen to epic narrators or just beautiful and touching music.

It is assumed that the so-called Russian punk rock was born in 1979 in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), mainly due to the efforts of Andrei Panov (1960—1998), the permanent frontman of the first Russian punk band Avtomaticheskie Udovletvoriteli (translated as Automatic Satisfiers).

Bayan is one of the most perfect chromatic accordions existing nowadays. Bayan is widely known abroad as “button accordion”, while buttons are not the only difference. As compared to the western accordion, bayan has a different tone colour and fuller sound and is great for dance melodies.

Today the Russian folk stringed musical instrument balalaika is going through hard times. There are not so many professional balalaika players left; country people have abandoned this once popular instrument. There have been ups and downs in the history of balalaika, yet it still lives and remains one of the symbols of Russian folk culture.

Vizbor was an illustrious songwriter and singer, film actor, journalist, writer and scriptwriter. One of the founders of author’s song genre in Russia, he created over 400 songs.

Yuliy Kim is a well-known Russian poet, composer, bard, dramatist, and scriptwriter. He is the author of about five hundred songs (many of them appearing in feature films and play productions), thirty plays and ten books.