Balalajka

Every Cossack is a born dancer, and the merry tinkle of a “balalajka” band eventually proved too much for the colonel (a grey-haired veteran of over six feet), who suddenly rose from his seat, hurriedly left the messroom, and the next moment was wildly “pirouetting” amongst his men with, notwithstanding a flowing robe and spurs, the grace and agility of a ballet-girl.

The Bayans and Balalajkas of the BERYOZKA FOLK DANCERS

Praising the “play of thought” in Dostoevskij’s work since Crime and Punishment he exclaims: “Well, what sort of playing was there in Poor Folk? One string, and even that on a balalajka.”

My deceased aunts and uncles, / Playing “Balalajkas”, / Sipping glasses of wine?

In the Novgorod uezd (Gruzinskaja volost’), for example, whole groups of ‘gypsy’ girls dressed in brightly coloured frocks and shawls would appear in the village streets going from house to house, dancing and singing gypsy songs to a balalajka and accordion accompaniment.

[…] kruglolitsa” with an accompaniment by balalajkas, domras and a bajan.

Russ. trynka-brynka ‘worthless little coin’ or ‘plink-plunk’ (of a balalajka), associatively helped by purely onomatopoeic tryndi-bryndi ‘plink-plunk’ (verbal rendition of balalajka’s sound ~ trynka ‘small silver coin,’ or a card-game; blended with tren’kat’ / bren’kat’ ‘play badly’ as a further associative echo.

Other times she was just Oxana, like now, when he lifted little Kolja up from the rough planks on the veranda and danced around with him in her arms, as if there were a balalajka orchestra in her head.