Accordion Tula A-1 from Russia

[Jaime_Dergut]

Hello dear accordion community,

today I would like to share with you an accordion that I found while browsing the catalog of Tulskaya Garmond instruments, a factory of several instruments from Russian, including accordions and bayans.

What would be your thoughts for the A-1 model played in the demo video below?





It has 4/5 set of reeds 13 registers on the right side and 3/5 sets of reeds and 6 register on the left side. It is supposed to be a student model. They are asking around 2.2k$ in Rubles.

It seems nice for a brand new accordion with those features. ( You could even request to add bayan reeds instead, if these are Italian made).

That will be everything for this post.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Jaime

 

[oldbayan]

I don't know about their large instruments but I bought a Tulskaya garmon a few years ago and the quality of the construction and reeds are quite good. Now, things with Russia aren't what they used to be, it must be nearly impossible to import anything or send money there at the moment!

 

[Siegmund]

Before the war Tulas looked like quite good value for money. I think they sound as good as say a newish Weltmeister does.
The 40% import duty (which may not end until some years after the war ends), along with the big price jumps the last two years, makes them less appealing now.

 

[Dingo40]

I bought a Tulskaya garmon a few years ago

How did that pan out?

 

[oldbayan]

How did that pan out?

I bought it from a distributor in Moscow, the transaction went well, the seller had a correspondent bank account with Chase Manhattan to facilitate the payment. Thus was before the war in Ukraine, banking with Russia was still possible but western banks were still asking lots of questions when you tell them you want to send money to a Russian bank.

For the instrument I would say the quality compares to what Hohner would make in its European factories. The tuning is very good and the accordion plays very well. The decoration is hand-painted. Mine is a model 301-M tuned in A (the most popular tuning is C but I like the lower sound of A). Wet tuning MM on mine. Nice deep bass sound too.

Г-21 Гармонь «Тульская-301М» купить по выгодной цене 💰 от производителя 🎹

Г-21 Гармонь «Тульская-301М» — купить со скидкой от фабрики «Тульская гармонь» 🎹

harmonica-tula.ru

The "garmon" or "garmoshka" is typical of Russian folk music, and has a very interesting layout of keys. The bass side is made to play typical Russian music, and the treble side's notes are organized with one row for the notes on the lines of a staff, and the other for the notes in between lines! Which makes reading music somehow easy.



The man in this video plays one like mine:

 

[Dingo40]

The man in this video plays one like mine:

Thanks for sharing: very interesting!

 

[Dingo40]

 

[oldbayan]

The tune called "Eh, yabloshko" (Эх, Яблочко) "Eh, little apple"

Some of those "garmons" have 5 treble voices. There are manufacturers outside of Russia that make them, like Dino Baffetti. We see professional Russian musicians use them, instead of domestic brands.

Serie - Russian - Dino Baffetti accordions

baffetti-accordions.com

 

[oldbayan]

Thanks for sharing: very interesting!

There are lots of variations on the accordion theme! Most people only know about the piano accordion...

I read somewhere that at the time of the Soviet regime, there were only a few accordion types that manufacturers were allowed to make! One of them was the "garmoshka".

 

[JerryPH]

I don't know about their large instruments but I bought a Tulskaya garmon a few years ago and the quality of the construction and reeds are quite good. Now, things with Russia aren't what they used to be, it must be nearly impossible to import anything or send money there at the moment!

You are right. There is currently an embargo from Russia to the USA. Something to do about some kind of war... lol
For me the accordion sounds about right for it's price, I find the sound weak but that could just as easily be the quality of the mics that recorded that video.

 

[kimric]

Having spent a little time at the factory and talked about getting piano accordion converter models here is what I can tell you.
The TULA factory does not make piano keyboards anymore, but uses chinese instrument shells and installs a converter bass machine inside that they make. I had several on order (they could do the bayan or the Italian bass layout) these would have been affordable student models. Then the war started. I have not really had any communication since then.

 

[Jaime_Dergut]

Having spent a little time at the factory and talked about getting piano accordion converter models here is what I can tell you.
The TULA factory does not make piano keyboards anymore, but uses chinese instrument shells and installs a converter bass machine inside that they make. I had several on order (they could do the bayan or the Italian bass layout) these would have been affordable student models. Then the war started. I have not really had any communication since then.

I have contacted some representatives from TULA's factory, asking them for information about their bayan models.

While they have been cooperative with me, they stated they can't make any transaction directly with me due to western banks boycott against Russian economy.

 

[kimric]

I used to get small button accordions from them and mod them, they were generally nice to deal with but really flaky about responding to emails even though I was ordering multiple instruments. "boycott Russian economy" that is a interesting way of framing it.
I stopped ordering from them on principal.