The Moldovan cobza is strung like a mandolin. The strings are double course and in unison. It uses the same tuning in fifths, GG DD aa ee. The cobza, however, is a larger bodied instrument and therefore at a lower pitch. I did read about this particular variation being a result of both sparsity and resourcefulness during the Soviet era. I say that because the cobza originally was fretless. Generally speaking, the instrument seems to be derived from the oud and barbat family, much more than from the tambur family. It has a pear or teardrop shape and glued ribs for a bowlback. The frets are metal and in a chromatic pattern.

It is closely related to the Romanian cobza and Hungarian koboz and distantly to the Ukrainian kobza, but does differ from all of them. Originally, it had a fretless neck, with wound and octave strings strung in octaves pairs and tuned re-entrant to dD aA dD/dd gG. Laci Szlama says that the Hungarian dance house movement created other stringings, particularly the unison wound and nylon AA EE AA dd (not re-entrant). Both these instruments were played with feathers in the past and nowadays mostly with oud plectrums.

The Moldovan cobzas I have seen were played with guitar and mandolin plectrums. In the Ukraine, it also is fretted and uses the same tuning, but in single courses and later saw additional harp strings being added, like with their bandura. This cobza is used in folk music, of course. But while it accompanies traditional dances, it is also used in contemporary music. The etymology is the same for all these instruments, stemming from the proto-Turkic kopuz, a term that later became the qopuz, gomus, kybiz, etc. It's a very old word for 'instrument', just like saz or tar are.

#tambouras

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