Proud owner of a handcrafted dombura

This weekend I decided it was time to buy a dombura. I’ve been taking lessons for a while, but I haven’t had an instrument to practice with since I moved to my new host family. Hence, it’s difficult to make much progress.

Plus, I’m supposed to be playing at an upcoming concert. I can’t provide any further details right now, but I can say that’s it’s coming up soon and I’ll need to practice a lot between now and the big day so that I don’t make a fool of myself.

So, there are lots of domburas available here in Kazakhstan. The smallest ones available are non-functioning dombura statues that are sold in souvenir shops. There are also numerous souvenir domburas available. The playable souvenirs usually run about 5000 KZT or so. But my instructor told me their quality is pretty lousy. She said I could get one made by a master in Pavlodar for about 9000 KZT, though.

After a lot of thought on the matter, I finally decided to invest in a quality instrument. In converted dollars, the difference between souvenir and quality is not that great, so it wasn’t that difficult a decision.

I started asking my instructor where I could buy a quality dombura in Pavlodar. It took a long time to get an address from her, but I eventually got that and a few phone numbers for the shop.

Once in Pavlodar, I enlisted the help of my friend Jeffrey to help track down the store. None of us had heard of the street the store was on, so I needed help finding it. Between a cool computer program Jeffrey has that shows a map of the city and his excellent Russian skills we were able to locate the shop.

Off we went, looking for 153 Margulana Street. We walked right to it, but there wasn’t any prominent signage that said “domburas here” so it took us a minute to get our bearings.

Once inside we were greeted by the master himself, Baurzhan Kabulbekovich Barlukov. I guess I haven’t completely broken ties with my American cultural perceptions, because I envisioned that this place would be a neat little storefront with several options to choose from. Nope. This was the master’s workshop and he was getting ready to varnish several instruments when Jeffrey and I arrived.

My instructor had told him I was coming, so he was expecting me and I received a warm welcome. He showed us his shop as well as some of the instruments he was building at the time. It was a magical place for me. I was totally on cloud nine. Before I moved to Nashville, I built quite a bit of furniture with my Dad, and we both really enjoyed it. One of his uncles or great uncles owned a saw mill, and my Mom’s Dad was a fairly accomplished woodworker. I guess you could saw woodworking is just in my blood.

It was really interesting to see the different instruments in various stages of completion. He sells three different models: a children’s dombura that is about 5000 KZT, the dombura I purchased at 9000 KZT and the professional model for 30000 KZT. He told us that it takes about four days to finish an instrument.

After learning about his work, he opened a cabinet and pulled out my dombura. Not only does he build them, but he can also play them quite well. Before I bought the dombura Baurzhan Kabulbekovich gave us a quick concert on the instrument I would buy.

It’s really hard to even put into words what an amazing experience this was for me. I got to meet a master dombura maker and tour his shop. I saw his workspace and got to talk to him about his work. He also said I could come back and watch and learn sometime – an offer I definitely plan to take up! I also got a dombura. It will be a great way to share Kazakhstani culture with Americans when I go home. Plus, it was handcrafted by a local artisan. I didn’t buy some cheap, mass produced junk. It’s a master’s work that I own now. It was an incredible cultural experience, and one that I think will buoy me through some of the tough times I may face in the remainder of my time here.

Now that I think about it, chances are that he built that instrument specifically for me. I told my instructor early in the week that I wanted to buy a dombura, and she said she would have to call someone first. I thought she was calling to get the shop’s number from someone, but she may actually have been calling in the order for me!

Some days you just get really lucky. Yesterday was one of those days.