Gudok

The gudok or hudok is an ancient Eastern Slavic string musical instrument, played with a bow. A gudok usually had three strings, two of them tuned in unison and played as a drone, the third tuned a fifth higher. All three strings were in the same plane at the bridge, so that a bow could make them all sound simultaneously. Sometimes the gudok also had several sympathetic strings under the sounding board. These made the gudok's sound warm and rich. The player held the gudok on his lap, like a cello or viola da gamba. It was also possible to play the gudok while standing and even while dancing, which made it popular among skomorokhs. Initially in the 12th century, the gudok did not have a neck for pressing strings. This suggests that it was played by stopping the strings from the side with fingernails, rather than pressing strings onto the instrument's neck. Later in the 14th century some modifications of the gudok had a real neck for pressing strings. Russian gudok ceased to exist as a folk instrument for several centuries. All present instruments are replicas, based on several parts of gudoks found in the Novgorod excavations.