February 14, 2026
Cold War chords, hot takes
Guitars of the USSR and the Jolana Special in Azerbaijani Music
From clunky Soviet planks to Azeri shred god—fans argue, smoke, and strum
TLDR: A deep dive into Soviet-era guitars and an Azerbaijani virtuoso’s wild VHS performance sparked a split: nostalgia vs “these things are awful.” Engineers defended the heavy builds; punks bragged about DIY pickups from phone booths. It matters because flawed tools shaped unique sounds across the former USSR.
Let’s be honest: the comments turned this Soviet (USSR) guitar safari into a full‑blown culture war. On one side, nostalgia lovers squealed over the bizarre, brick‑heavy Tonika and its sci‑fi pickups (the bits that capture string sound); on the other, hardliners called them musical punishment devices. “Jesus those things are big!” gasped dsign, before going full math‑nerd, blaming steel rods and a “secant formula” for those baseball‑bat necks. Meanwhile, belZaah swung the hammer: “These are objectively awful instruments,” claiming bands raided public phone booths for microphones to DIY pickups. The punk‑rock image practically writes itself.
Then the spotlight shifted to Azerbaijan, where virtuoso Remish melts faces in a grainy VHS shred fest — glass‑bottle slides, wild bends, one‑handed tapping, and yes, smoking while soloing like a guitar noir hero. The chill crowd chimed in with “cool stuff!” and “very cool find”, but the real fight was about legacy: were these clunky Soviet planks charming artifacts or creativity killers? As the thread bickered, one truth emerged: the weirdness of Central Planning (government design orders) birthed distinct guitars, and musicians from Leningrad to Baku turned flaws into flavor. Love them or roast them, community can’t stop talking — and that’s the tune
Key Points
- •The author collects Eastern Bloc electric guitars, starting with an Orpheus found in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
- •A Soviet Tonika is highlighted as the first USSR electric guitar model, designed under central planning to avoid resembling American brands.
- •Tonika guitars are described as heavy, difficult to play, and poorly intonated, yet fitted with relatively complex, well-made pickups.
- •Czechoslovak-made guitars were preferred by Soviet musicians for their playability; a site lists many models from that region.
- •Research into Azerbaijani music features guitarist Remish, with a long performance video showcasing techniques like bends, whammy use, analog delay, overdrive, slide, and tapping.