Russian Guitar

The Russian guitar (sometimes referred to as a "Gypsy guitar") is an acoustic seven-string guitar that arrived in Russia toward the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, most probably as an evolution of the cittern, kobza, and torban. It is known in Russian as the semistrunnaya gitara (семиструнная гитара), or affectionately as the semistrunka (семиструнка), which translates to "seven-stringer", but with the feminine gender. These guitars are typically tuned to an Open G chord as follows: DGBdgbd'. An alternative, the so-called Gypsy tuning, is DGBgdcd'. The latter is sometimes said to be typical of the Ukrainian kobza in the preceding century.