Tar, round backed lute (Azerbaijan model). The body, kosah, of the instrument is of white mulberry wood (Morus alba), the neck, pegbox and pegs of walnut. The membrane is from the pericardial sac round the heart of a cow. Three pairs of stopped strings (5 steel, 1 overwound with copper), two pairs of drones (steel), one bass drone (overwound with copper). "Ebony" bridge (kharak). The "kosh kharak" (upper bridge) made of bone from a cow's leg is so called on account of the shape of the section for the bass drone. 23 nylon frets.
Abdu Sattar Moidunov (b. 1924) graduated from Moscow State University as an engineer. He worked all his life in the field of engineering, and had a senior post at the Tashkent State Institute of Cotton Production. He started making instruments in 1955. In 1968 he was brought an Azeri model tar for repair, and he started to make copies, such as this example. When this tar was collected from the maker in Andijon in the Fergana valley in 1999, it was the playing instrument of the maker's grandson, who was a student in the music school there.
