The classical bandura has 20 strings and wooden tuning pegs. The Kyiv bandura is the most common bandura found today. It was mass produced during the Soviet Era in two areas of Ukraine and has 55 to 64 strings. The Kharkiv bandura has 34 to 65 stings and often includes a key-changing mechanism.

A bandura (Ukrainian: бандура) is a Ukrainian plucked-string folk-instrument. It combines elements of the zither and lute and, up until the 1940s, was also often called a kobza. Early instruments ( c. 1700) had 5 to 12 strings and resembled lutes.

BANDURA AND ITS HISTORY. The instrument was first noted in a 6th century Greek chronicle in a reference to warriors from Ukrainian territories who played lute-like instruments. This lute-like instrument, called a kobza, was much smaller, more circular, and had fewer strings than the modern bandura.