The story
Imagine you are holding a wooden triangle, its sharp corners smoothed by the hands of someone who wanted a bit of music in a quiet village. For centuries, the balalaika was exactly that—a simple, flat-backed instrument often made of pine or fir, carved by folk musicians who needed something portable and sturdy. The earliest official mention of it appears in a document from 1688, describing a moment of public music-making that caught the attention of the authorities. The name itself likely comes from a word that means to chat or to joke, which tells you everything you need to know about its personality. It was never meant to be formal.
As you turn the pegs to reach those two E notes followed by the A, you are participating in a specific history that was nearly lost. In the 1880s, a young nobleman named Vasily Andreyev heard a peasant playing a crude version of this instrument. He was so enchanted by its peculiar, dry timbre that he dedicated his life to perfecting it. He teamed up with a luthier named Franz Paserbsky to standardize what you are holding now. Together, they decided on the chrome frets and the precise dimensions of the body, creating a family of instruments that ranges from the tiny piccolo to the massive contrabass that rests on a spike on the floor.
The tuning you are setting right now—that unison E and E followed by a fourth up to A—is the soul of the prima balalaika. It might seem strange to have two strings tuned to the identical note, but there is a brilliant logic to it. When you strum across all three, those two E strings vibrate together, creating a thick, shimmering drone. It allows you to play a melody on the high A string while the two lower strings provide a constant, resonant heartbeat. It turns a three-stringed instrument into something that sounds much fuller, almost as if a second person is humming along with your tune.
Andreyev eventually took his Great Russian Orchestra on tour across Europe and America, showing the world that this triangular box was capable of incredible complexity. But even in a grand concert hall, it never lost that "chatting" quality. It is an instrument of the people, designed to be played with the fingers rather than a plectrum. As you finish your tuning, try something simple. Take your index finger and lightly brush it up and down across all three strings in a rapid, fluid motion. This is the tremolo. Notice how the two unison strings blur together into a single, continuous wall of sound, making the wood against your chest hum with life.