The Reverb Guide to Soviet-Era Guitars

It’s 1969. NASA successfully lands on the Moon, The Beatles release Abbey Road, and a small group of luthiers in a cold factory in Leningrad are just putting the finishing touches on the first Soviet solid body electric guitar.

In its early days, the USSR severely resisted the spread of rock music from the West and demand for electric guitars was limited. Domestic production of guitars had already been shuttered under Stalin, and with rock music officially recognized as a western influence, there was no impetus for manufacturing to begin again.

But the people of the Soviet Union still had their ears to the ground. By the 1960s, an increasing number of records were smuggled through the Iron Curtain’s many holes as the veil between East and West grew thinner. Rock music helped create a rebel subculture throughout the USSR’s satellite countries, and many people began smuggling in blue jeans and various items considered Western extravagances by the government.

But the USSR did not see the electric guitar itself as a threat, and after a long period of dormancy, domestic guitar production began once again.

It began as an extremely misguided venture. For the most part, Russian luthiers had only previously been experienced in building more traditional instruments. Electric guitars were brand new territory for Soviet craftsmen who had to play catch-up straight off the block. When their first solid body electric guitar was manufactured in 1969, it was both a landmark and a miserable failure.

The First Attempt

The first botched electric guitar effort in the Soviet Union was the infamous Tonika model. This guitar remains a notoriously awful instrument, and while many regard it as one of the worst guitars ever built, its significance as historical artifact has made it a highly sought-after model in recent years.

Versions of this guitar were manufactured in various regions across the Soviet Union, with the original Leningrad Tonika having the worst reputation of all. Essentially, the luthiers got nothing right; high action, terrible intonation, brass frets that easily wore away, an alien body shape, unbalanced weight, unreliable electronics, and non-serviceable hardware can be counted as some of the reasons for this guitar's dismal performance.

But with prices starting at 130 rubles (about two months’ salary), the Tonika guitars were quite popular. They were derided and despised by guitarists in the Soviet Union, but the prices for Japanese and American models purchased on the black market were extremely expensive, so most were left with no other choice.

Yuriy Shishkov, a Belarusian luthier who went on to work for Fender, describes the frustration of acquiring a decent guitar in the USSR:

"Since buying a Soviet-made electric guitar was not an option I was willing to consider, I was left with only one possible solution: the black market. Everything from keyboards, amplifiers, and electric guitars could be purchased from the underground dealers. The only problem was the astronomical price on these items, rendering them impossible for me to afford. To pick up a Japanese or American guitar through these sources was also not so easy, as there were few options to choose from and limited availability." – If Guitars Could Talk (pg. 286)

Note: take a look at this interview with Yuriy for more on his work and experiences.

You could possibly forgive the Tonika’s dreadful design since the luthiers were so inexperienced and had little access to Western instrument templates, but Mr. Shushkov wasn’t only speaking about the early Tonikas.

A Steady Ascent

The lack of experience in designing electric instruments is just one of a few factors that contributed to the poor quality of Soviet-era craftsmanship. The communist government’s involvement in the factories also hampered the building process by limiting the availability of materials.

There was no private guitar enterprise, and the USSR was not heavily invested in sponsoring the production of electric guitars when the Cold War was at its height. They made use of domestic components that could easily be recognized in many other applications such as plastic pickguard material and knobs that were standard fittings on home appliances and other items.

There was very little variety and if the parts weren’t suitable, they’d be left to their own devices to find a way to make things work. In a way, it’s a testament to the ingenuity of the luthiers charged with designing these instruments with limited resources and expertise.

Many of the early designs are experimental. Some featured plastic tops, onboard effects like flangers, fuzz, and phasers, extraordinary bridge designs that attempted to mimic the Bigsby vibrato, and uncommon material choices. Some of it worked, some of it didn’t.

One such oddity was the standard Soviet five-pin output that resembled a MIDI jack. It allowed for phantom power and stereo output, but most of the Soviet-era guitars did not take advantage of these features. They were eventually phased out after the USSR’s breakup, but represent some degree of foresight given the potential utility of this type of connection for modern electronic music gear.

In spite of these questionable beginnings, the guitars started to get better through the '70s and '80s. Frank Meyers, a long-time Soviet guitar enthusiast and proprietor of Drowning in Guitars, likens many of the designs to Japanese models, suggesting that luthiers relied heavily on them for influence. By the time the Union collapsed, there had been twenty factories each manufacturing their own brand of instruments in varying degrees and each with its own unique stamp.

There was also very little consistency between production runs, with many models ceasing production in one factory and starting up again in an entirely different region. This is one of the many reasons why documenting their history has proven difficult, and why there remains so little conclusive information about this era of guitar manufacturing history.

Appreciating the Past — Novelty & Nostalgia for Soviet Guitars

Virtually everything that we know about Soviet-era guitars is through the effort of a small community of people on a Russian website dedicated to the instruments: SovietGuitars.com. They grew up in the Soviet Union, watched it fall, and played these crazy guitars all along the way. In fact, members of this community are responsible for practically all the information you can find on the subject online and much of the research for this this article was done with their help.

On their website, you can find a database of every known Soviet-era guitar, the factory it was built in, the years it was available, price, and number of models produced - the result of over 10 years of research. In Russian, the database is called the АТЛАС ЭЛЕКТРОГИТАР СССР which translates to something like USSR ELECTROGITAR ATLAS.

It remains the sole effort to document the entire history of Soviet electric guitar manufacturing, and the guide we've built at the bottom of this article represents a graphical, English-language compilation of this data.

Even though some of the information is still missing, the amount of data they’ve compiled is impressive, especially considering the utter lack of documentation from the original factories. Vladislav Selivanov, a respected collector at SovietGuitars.com who has contributed to the Atlas, explains why documenting these instruments has been such a tedious process:

"It is hard to find info on guitars and models because the factories (there were around twenty of them) ceased to exist in the early '90s. No one needed their archives and they were often discarded by the new owners. Only in the course of the last 10 years or so there has been a rise of interest towards those instruments, and a group of enthusiasts have been restoring their history. Almost all guitar models have been discovered, and their model range [production quantities] has been researched."

Even though public opinion regarding these guitars at the time was extremely low, and their written history discarded and forgotten, the guitars of the USSR have become increasingly popular among collectors. There's a growing market for these instruments online, and you can find dedicated Soviet guitar vendors located in various parts of Russia and former Soviet satellite countries, most of who are active participants in the forum community.

The instruments aren’t usually collected for their playability so much as their novelty and historical intrigue. They are a truly unique branch of electric guitar history and one that was almost entirely forgotten.

For those who lived in the Soviet Union before it fell, these guitars have a nostalgic value and serve as humorous reminders of some of the peculiarities and shortcomings of life in the communist era. To Westerners, they are fascinating oddities that give a glimpse into a foreign world and historical trajectory. For guitarists all over the world, they are an extraordinary addition to the family tree.

Appendix: Known Soviet Guitar Factories, Locations, Models, and Production Numbers

In the charts you see below, we've brought together a bulk of the data compiled by the online Soviet guitar community from Sovietgutiars.com into one place. Naturally, this information is not complete and in many cases represents just the best estimates of the enthusiast community. If you possess a Soviet gutiar or are interested in buying one, we hope this compiled information can be of some utility.

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---