Shadows of a Forgotten World

"7 Skills Your Grandparents Had That You Don't" The skills listed are: cooking from scratch, sewing, canning, ironing, meeting people without the benefit of the Internet, haggling, writing beautiful letters. The full article can be found here .

I bought my tsymbaly (hammered dulcimer) from the Tafiychuks  –  a family of musicians and instrument makers that lives in the Carpathian Mountains. Mykhailo Tafiychuk, or "the Last Hutsul Musical Magician" as Cobblestone Freeway dubbed him in this article , makes many different ancient instruments such as the hurdy gurdy, tsymbaly, and duda (Ukrainian bagpipe). Very few master craftsmen of traditional Ukrainian instruments remain. Fortunately, Mykhailo's son has also learned to make instrument, and in fact he made my tsymbaly.