Cyrillic script

These songs of old Russia are written in black Cyrillic characters on dated paper made by the Russian government. The music notations, derived from Byzantine neumes, are Kriuki-literally, "singing hooks," and each may represent a group of notes. There are also two rows of red symbols which may be for singing in two parts, fixing the intervallic meaning of the Kriuki symbols. This type of church writing, though rare, still survives. The Cyrillic alphabet consisted of forty-three letters. It was a modification of the XIV century Greek uncial, attributed by historians to St. Cyril, an apostle of the Slavs and a noted linguist who translated the Bible into Slavonic.

Kriuki "singing hooks" derived from Byzantine neumes.