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https://denver.craigslist.org/msg/d/bro ... 96559.html

I am trying to parse the description "pre st. pete"...

My history is a little weak. Was it made there while it was... Leningrad?

humBell wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2026 12:39 pm I am trying to parse the description "pre st. pete"...

My history is a little weak. Was it made there while it was... Leningrad?

"Is tuba"

Yes. IIRC, there are a number of different engravings on those, ranging from a single character up to a rudimentary "logo." The St Pete and Leningrad tubas aren't necessarily awful, but there's something about the really large bore that mismatches with the rest of the design of the instrument.

It works... Which I suppose is the one requirement to be a true Soviet tuba.

The one I posted may have been built in Kyiv, so maybe saying pre-St. Pete was a bit of a geographical misnomer, but they're all eggs from the same chicken.

Here is a Leningrad horn (which later became what we know as St. Petersburg). Seems a bit nicer:



Pretty similar except it has normal metal cork plates instead of the lower-cost cork bumpers as seen on the original post.

I sort of gather that the old Zimmerman --> Leningrad --> St. Pete lineage tubas are of higher quality than the ones you occasionally see being sold by Ukrainian sellers on eBay and the like relatively inexpensively. Those tend to be built in Kyiv and some have "Kyiv Radio Factory" engraved on the bells.

I think now, modern St. Petes are now known as STP Carpathians and are built in Ukraine, which muddies the waters even further.

Regardless, they all have the same basic body layout, being sort of stumpy/Piggy-ish, with a large bore. I'd love to find a parts one to use to modify my Piggy.

I remember in the mid 90s, the St Pete tubas were sold on the German "Die Tuba" website, as-is or with the valve linkages replaced with German parts. Sounded like an interesting idea, in that it was an awful lot of work required to make a so-so tuba into a slightly nicer so-so tuba.