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53semeiskie style). As in many other Russian polyphonic styles, in semeiskie polyphony thetop part is the only part performed by a soloist. Unlike the most of Russian polyphonicstyles, where women play the leading role, semeiskie polyphony is performed mostly bymen. Among Russian polyphonic traditions southern Russian Cossack polyphony (alsomostly male) shows the closest parallels to semeiskie polyphony (Dorofeev, 1985:41).The most salient feature of semeiskie polyphonic style is the presence of large amount ofsharp dissonant chords, often moving into another sharp dissonances (instead of movinginto the consonances, or to the unison, more usual for the most of Russian polyphonicstyles).Ex. 2. Russia. Semeiskie from lake Baikal region. (Zemtsovsky, 1972:125)In the 1920 th Russian ethnomusicologist Gippius recorded in the North Russia“duets and trios with uniquely independent voices, but this style seems to havedisappeared” (Zemtsovsky, 2000:758). Today North Russia is maybe the mostmonophonic region of Russia. Another unique style – two- and three-part imitationpolyphony (“canon”) was recorded in one Russian village (village Foshchevatogo inBelgorod district) as a part of the wedding tradition, with the local terminology for thedifferent parts (Shchurov, 1985:14-15).Very specific type of polyphony occurs at some Russian rituals. This is asimultaneous singing of different songs, seemingly totally unrelated to each other (theonly connection is that they both are bound to be performed at the certain moment of theritual) (Zemtsovsky, 2000:758). Such songs sometimes are completely contrasting witheach other. For example, during the wedding ritual in Russian village one can hear thesimultaneous performance of: (1) a ritual lament by the bride (female solo lamentinginside her parent’s home), and (2) cheerful song, sung by the Best Men (male choiroutside the house). These songs have different character, texts, rhythm, formal structureand tonal centers.To summarize, we may say that different types of traditional polyphony is presentactually on the entire territory of Russia. The only region where monophony isdominating (from the musical point of view) is North Russia, where only unison-