Piano from Zarya factory

The piano of the Zarya factory was once a very important and popular type of such instrument. And even now it is found occasionally, therefore it is necessary to know the characteristics of the instrument of production in the USSR and the year of its release. It is especially important how much it weighs and what dimensions it has.

The Zarya factory was located in the village of Pravdinsky, in the Moscow region. Although it only started working in the mid-1950s, the backstory goes far beyond the early Soviet era. Back in 1928, an artel was organized in Pravdinsky to produce panel board prefabricated houses. The following year, after merging with another artel, it switches to furniture production. In December 1954, the production of piano parts began on this base.

And next year a new factory appears on the map of the USSR music production. It was created by reorganizing the old artel and re-equipping production.

The predecessor of the brand line, and called - "Zarya", "Nocturnes" and "Rubinstein" had a resounding fame. They were transported to various parts of the country and neighboring countries (which then bordered on Italy and Austria). Some of the products were shipped steadily to Japan. In the late 1960s, a research, design and technological institute for the music industry was organized at the factory. There was no other institution on the planet that was simultaneously engaged in the preparation of standards and the design of qualitatively new types of musical instruments.

It was here that they created:

• banjo guitar;

• button accordion for young musicians;

• cabinet piano;

• semi-acoustic guitar;

• a room organ with an electric drive (and this is only a short list of the main positions, there were a number of other developments).

The tool of the Zarya factory shows itself from the best side. It serves confidently for many decades without any deterioration in sound quality or other problems. The weight of the piano is hard-coded in the national standard. And they are all very difficult. This is due to points such as:

• the main part is a frame cast entirely from cast iron;

• wooden frame or frame made of MDF in combination with wooden panel;

• heaviness of 230 strings, working mechanisms.

The year of release could be quite different, but it is known that the Zarya factory, together with 18 other enterprises for the production of musical instruments, began its work in 1955. Of those factories, only the Lyra enterprise continues to operate now. The contractors for the supply of components were:

• Leningrad;

• Borisov;

• Chernihiv organizations.

When preparing the model line, they proceeded from the Nocturne series produced at Krasny Oktyabr in Leningrad. It is worth considering that, since Zarya went into series production later, it turned out to be a more modern product. The designers were able to reduce the dimensions of the product: it reaches 120 cm in height and 150 cm in width. Compared to the prototype, the weight has been reduced by about 100 kg. There are almost no chances to find a ready-made, workable copy of Zarya now. The black piano "Zarya" sometimes weighed over 250 kg.

Like "Elegy" and "Nocturne", these instruments were well suited to the requirements of the 1970s. The wooden frame has been somewhat lightened. The spread in mass of a typical tool was from 210 to 260 kg. The most successful specimens of individual series weighed about 170 kg; however, sophisticated samples were also present in the rulers, which, due to a more sophisticated design, were weighted compared to the general norm.