On October 2, 2010, Barack Hussein Obama, the President of the United States, extended the ban on the sale of balalaikas for another ten years. Incredibly, balalaika cannot be legally purchased in the United States for over 70 years.
For the first time, a ban on balalaikas, for a period of ten years, was signed by US President Franklin Roosevelt in 1940. And since that time, this document has been constantly extended.
Until 2000, this ban did not apply to the state of Alaska, where the balalaika is considered a truly traditional musical instrument, however, Bill Clinton expanded the law to this territory.
Why is there such a dislike for this harmless instrument? The formal reason is the prohibition of balalaikas in tsarist Russia. The Orthodox Church and the state have imposed a ban on the sale of this folk instrument because it supposedly allows people to "mock and mock the current government." In the USSR, this restriction was removed.
In fact, the ban on the sale of balalaikas in the United States is a retaliation. Until 1954, the USSR did not allow the sale of cowboy hats on its territory. In the Soviet Union, this ridiculous prohibition law was abolished, and in the United States it remains in effect to this day.
However, in the United States, this law is not fully preserved today. You can play the balalaika, but for this you need to purchase a special license. Balalaikas cannot be massively sold and produced, but single private sales are still permitted.
Here the Americans are sitting across the ocean and cannot enjoy the sounds of the balalaika, but the ridiculous law is to blame for everything, the likes of which there are many in the country of victorious democracy.
