Russian Bayan (Button Accordion) Art

The bayan (Баян) is the button-key accordion, a member of the accordion family that reached Xinjiang's Ili from Europe in the early twentieth century and wove itself into local folk music, becoming an important form of Russian ethnic culture. It entered the Xinjiang regional ICH list in 2012 and was inscribed on the fifth national ICH list in May 2021 (item II-185), declared by Yining city and protected by the Yining Cultural Centre.

The bayan has a wide range, a long breath and a rich harmonic voice; players work the button boards with both hands against the bellows, performing solo or accompanying song and dance, and its cheerful, heartfelt tunes ring out at family gatherings, festivals and on the lanes of Russian-settled quarters such as Liuxing Jie.

Russian bayan art is a portrait of Ili's multicultural mingling, bearing witness to the meeting and coexistence of Chinese and foreign musical cultures on the Central Asian frontier, and holds real value for the study of China's minority instrumental music and cross-border cultural exchange.

At the Alexander Accordion Collection within the Liuxing Jie folk-culture hall one can hear the bayan and view more than eight hundred accordions from many lands.