Droma (Long Lost Instrument) Unit 5

Domra is a Russian folk music instrument with a rounded body and three or four strings played with a mediator. It is a prototype of the balalaika. Starting from 1648 there broke out a range of tsar’s orders forbidding instrumental music. All music instruments in Moscow were forcefully taken away from their masters, piled up together on five carts, brought behind the Moskva River and burnt down there. In the late 19th century a small instrument with a rounded body was discovered in Vyatka Province. The instrument soon fell into the hands of Vasili Vasilievich Andreyev. comparing the found instrument with similar images kept in relic pictures and prints, and using written descriptions, Vasili Andreyev conjectured the find was the long-looked-for dorm.