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#3159635 09/26/21 12:00 PM
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In a quest for a mystery piece down the Youtube rabbit hole I stumbled on this peculiar piano. The fallboard says 'yanka' - but I can't get any information on this brand. Is it Russian? FWIW the tone is what I imagine a vintage Petrof would sound like.



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Well, it's maybe ЧАЙКА or something like that. I don't know the cyrillic alphabet. Apparently in latin alphabets that would be CHAYKA i.e. "Seagull".

Related and mentions Chayka: http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2637249/Soviet_upright_pianos_-_has_an.html

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Apparently the actual translitteration used for export of those pianos was Tchaika:

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(Image from: https://wowpianos.co.ke/shop/tchaika/)

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Cool! Now I know what I want for Christmas grin


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It says 'Чайка', i.e. 'Chaika', i.e. Gull.
This brand is still built in Russia.


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So, this Чайка seems to be in better condition than the other one, and it sounds quite pretty



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Believe not what you see, believe not what you hear, believe what know! From what we hear Russia still does not produce good pianos. Perhaps for the children of the Russian elite though, perhaps they now do? Is this piano expensive?
😃

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This is a nice finish! If I had my life over and I could afford it I would get Cunningham to order me a cherry colored Bosendorfer.Of course I would need a total change of house and furniture for a cherry Bosendorfer semi concert grand! Otherwise it would never go with any of my furniture which is all dark,(so no only black or dark pianos for me at the moment)


https://wowpianos.co.ke/shop/tchaika-acoustic-upright-piano/

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As a former socialist bloc country we're full of Soviet made upright pianos, there are more than anything else here. And I can assure you they are absolute rubbish. I am yet to see a Soviet piano that is worth it. They were designed poorly, made poorly, with worst type of materials. If you need it for an effect, e.g. for period movies, or need the intentionally bad sound, then yes, go for it. That being said, they may have made better pianos for export to the west though, I don't know that.

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Originally Posted by CyberGene
As a former socialist bloc country we're full of Soviet made upright pianos, there are more than anything else here. And I can assure you they are absolute rubbish. I am yet to see a Soviet piano that is worth it. They were designed poorly, made poorly, with worst type of materials. If you need it for an effect, e.g. for period movies, or need the intentionally bad sound, then yes, go for it. That being said, they may have made better pianos for export to the west though, I don't know that.

I'm curious just how bad some of those Russian pianos are / were? (My imagination has the bass end of an older (~70+ years old) original-condition Baldwin Acrosonic spinet running circles around a new Russian 9-foot concert grand, or is my imagination embellishing things just a wee little bit? smile )


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Do Russian pianos have a reputation the precedes them? grin
Maybe there is something to be said piano and and the middle class. If the pianos are (were) of substandard quality maybe that's because the selling price can't justify high quality materials, and in turn they can't justify higher selling price because there is (was) no middle class that has purchasing power to create demand. Pianos really are a thing of leisure.


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bad anythings made USSR always. ALL Soviet pianos are stolen at European brands and it's made from low-quality materials. If an experienced tuner as Filatov (video here), then the piano will sound acceptable for several weeks.
regards,

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In Russian, THREE words sound almost the same, but have different meanings.
1 Seagull Чайка
2 Tea Чай
3 Tchaikovsky Чайковский

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Originally Posted by Maximillyan
2 Tea Чай
So if a Russian orders Чай at an Indian restaurant he'll be pleasantly surprised.

(the Hindi word for tea is a homophone)


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Originally Posted by cygnusdei
Originally Posted by Maximillyan
2 Tea Чай
So if a Russian orders Чай at an Indian restaurant he'll be pleasantly surprised.

(the Hindi word for tea is a homophone)
I dare to assume that the word in Russian "tea" appeared due to trade relations with China

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Originally Posted by Maximillyan
bad anythings made USSR always. ALL Soviet pianos are stolen at European brands and it's made from low-quality materials. If an experienced tuner as Filatov (video here), then the piano will sound acceptable for several weeks.
regards,
So good tuners can make a big difference with these pianos.That is something good!


My piano's voice is my voice to God and the great unknown universe, and to those I love.
In other words a hymn. That is all, but that is enough. tre corda


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Originally Posted by Maximillyan
Originally Posted by cygnusdei
Originally Posted by Maximillyan
2 Tea Чай
So if a Russian orders Чай at an Indian restaurant he'll be pleasantly surprised.

(the Hindi word for tea is a homophone)
I dare to assume that the word in Russian "tea" appeared due to trade relations with China

While I can't guarantee the anecdote is completely true, but:

- Europeans dealt with South China where tea was pronounced more or less like te. This is why in English it became tea, in German tee.

- Russians dealt with Northern China where it was pronounced as cha. So in Russian it became Чай (chai), and similar phonetics is true for many Slavic and Turkic languages.


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Originally Posted by tre corda
Originally Posted by Maximillyan
bad anythings made USSR always. ALL Soviet pianos are stolen at European brands and it's made from low-quality materials. If an experienced tuner as Filatov (video here), then the piano will sound acceptable for several weeks.
regards,
So good tuners can make a big difference with these pianos.That is something good!

.. as long as you only want the result for a couple of weeks. Max knows what he is talking about.

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Originally Posted by dogperson
Originally Posted by tre corda
Originally Posted by Maximillyan
bad anythings made USSR always. ALL Soviet pianos are stolen at European brands and it's made from low-quality materials. If an experienced tuner as Filatov (video here), then the piano will sound acceptable for several weeks.
regards,
So good tuners can make a big difference with these pianos.That is something good!

.. as long as you only want the result for a couple of weeks. Max knows what he is talking about.
I am sure he does!


My piano's voice is my voice to God and the great unknown universe, and to those I love.
In other words a hymn. That is all, but that is enough. tre corda


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Originally Posted by VladK
Originally Posted by Maximillyan
Originally Posted by cygnusdei
Originally Posted by Maximillyan
2 Tea Чай
So if a Russian orders Чай at an Indian restaurant he'll be pleasantly surprised.

(the Hindi word for tea is a homophone)
I dare to assume that the word in Russian "tea" appeared due to trade relations with China

While I can't guarantee the anecdote is completely true, but:

- Europeans dealt with South China where tea was pronounced more or less like te. This is why in English it became tea, in German tee.

- Russians dealt with Northern China where it was pronounced as cha. So in Russian it became Чай (chai), and similar phonetics is true for many Slavic and Turkic languages.
thanks,VladK

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