The roots of Russian folk music date as far back as to the middle of the first millennium AC, when Slavic tribes settled in the European part of the present territory of Russia. It is known, that in 591 Avars' Khan sent Slavic singers and gusli players as ambassadors to Byzantium Emperor. People played balalaikas, whistles, guslis, wooden spoons, bayan, etc..
Instrumental music was of much less importance than vocal music: obviously, as a result of the orthodox prohibition to use music instruments in church. Instruments are mainly used by shepherds or as accompaniment for some dances and songs. Mostly spread were string instruments, such as gusli (folk wing-shaped gusli date back to the 11th c.) and gudok (three-string fiddle used from 12th c, found by archeologists in old Novgorod). The most famous old wind instruments are doudka (or sopel, pishchalka) - end-blown flute known from the late 11th c, according to archaeological digging in Novgorod; zhaleika (rozhok) - an instrument with one or two wooden pipes and a horn bellmouth, dating back to the 18th c.; and kuvikly (or tsevnitsa, Pan pipe) - known from the 18th c., mainly in the Russian south. The Old Russian chronicles also mention military trumpets (book miniatures picturing them go back to the 15th- 17th cc), hunters' horns (the same epoch) and tambourines (12th c). As for the instruments now symbolizing Russian folk music - balalaika and bayan(accordion) - they were spread in Russia only in the 19th - 20th cc, as well as mandolin and guitar, originating in Western Europe, strange as it may seem. ( разбей по абзацам разные инструменты)

Gudok

Gudok is an ancient Russian folk music instrument. In spite of its name (meaning “hooter” in Russian) it is a string instrument. Skomorokhi (wandering minstrel-cum-clowns) used it in a combination with the Gusli. Gudok consisted of an oval or pear-shaped dugout wooden case, a flat sounding board with resonator holes, and a short fingerboard without frets, with a straight or unbent head. The instrument could be 30 to 80 cm long. It had three strings posited at one level to the sounding board. When playing the bow touched all the three strings simultaneously. The melody was played on the first string, and the second and the third ones sounded without pitch variations. Continuous sounding of the bottom strings was one of the prominent features of Russian folk music. During the performance the instrument was held on a player’s knee in the vertical position. Has been extended later, in XVII-XIX centuries.

Gudok can be referred to professionally made, but musically simplified instruments. Though many folk masters who knew joiner's craft, could make such an instrument independently.

European instruments differed from their Eastern analogs by having a wooden upper sounding board instead of a leather membrane or an animal’s bladder, like the latter ones. So European versions with richer and more powerful sounding can be considered more progressive.

It is remarkable that Gudok was recorded in archeological excavation of Veliky Novgorod earlier than Gusli. By the way, in the Astrakhan Province a reed pipe and svirel were also called Gudok.

Gudok was often used in small ensembles both with other instruments and with their relatives. There was a whole family: Gudok, Gudochek and Gudische.

Gudok was very popular in Russia at all times. It managed to survive even persecutions of secular music in the 17th century, under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. But it could not withstand the attack of the western music in the 19th century and disappeared from Russian culture, without having lived to its millennium. Gudok was partly replaced by the violin.

www.russia-ic.com/culture.../music/

lastochka-fromrussiawithlove.blogspot.com/

http://goshabagpiper.narod.ru/history.htm

http://metakultura.ru/kalik/history.htm