Balalaika Measurements

by James H. Flynn, Jr.

Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #284, 1984



The balalaika is a Russian folk musical instrument. It is relatively young, the first mention of it in written sources going back to 1715 (I.I. Golikov, “Supplements to the Works of Peter the Great”, 1792, p. 242). The instrument was perfected in its present form by V.V. Andreyev in the 1880s. The first performance of a “balalaika club” took place in Petersburg (Leningrad) in 1888. Since then, the instrument became extremely popular and remains so in the Soviet period.

Today, balalaikas are common in five sizes as follows: prima, secunda, alto, bass and contra-bass. Figure 1 shows the musical range of these instruments. Figure 2 illustrates the conventional shape of the balalaika and identifies its componnets. Figure 3 provides the side and end profiles of the instrument. Essential dimensions for all sizes of the instrument are shown in Table 1.