The following pages are dedicated to the history of Russian gramophone disk. During the whole century (from end XIX to end XXth cc.) the gramophone disc has remained a basic source of "conserved" sound information in home life.
The idea of recording information on a flat carrier using a spiral track suggested by Emil Berliner as early as 1888 turned out so fruitful (due to compactness and simplicity of manufacturing of records) that it is being used even now in modern digital equipment (CD-Audio, CD-ROM, DVD, etc.) Having as predecessor the Edison's wax cylinder, for which possibility of home recording was envisaged, Berliner's shellac plate did not have such a possibility. Since early 1960's home tape-recorders became to be widely used in this country, which, eliminating that drawback, nevertheless, never attained the level necessary for rendering the quality of sounding of the best gramophone disks. A digital audio disk which appeared in 1982, by the existing standard also could not surpass the velvety sound of the best mechanical records.
The object of this review is to outline development and diversity of forms of home gramophone records on the basis of illustrative material collected by the author, mainly, from the standpoint of users. The review cannot claim to be complete, nor any other one, presented by a single collector and researcher. The quantity and diversity of material call for joint efforts. Paying due tribute to very extensive work on labels of home gramophone disks on the remarkable site of Yury Grishin, we cite herein the documentary data not present in the above-mentioned and other sites (with rare exceptions, when consistency of narration would have suffered).

(c) Text & pictures V.V.Brousnikin, 2002