A garmon has two rows of buttons on the right side, which play the notes of a diatonic scale, and at least two rows of buttons on the left side, which play the primary chords in the key of the instrument as well as its relative harmonic minor key.

Examples of unisonoric type are livenka (ливенка, after Livny, Oryol Oblast), khromka (хромка, 'chromatic'), Tula accordion (Тульская гармонь, after Tula) and talyanka (тальянка, 'Italian') Beside Russian folk music, the garmon is an important musical instrument for Caucasian (Ossetian, Georgian, Cherkess, etc.)

Since the introduction of the accordion from Germany to Russia in the 1830s, Russian masters invented a lot of different types of local garmons during the 19th and 20th centuries.

It became the most popular and widespread button accordion in Russia, so almost all modern Russian (as well as Soviet) garmons (usually made in Tula and Shuya factories) are khromkas.

It had five or seven buttons on the right keyboard, and like in the most Western diatonic accordions it produced different sounds on pull and push.

Tula garmon was a base for all the Russian diatonic bisonoric garmoshkas (Saratov, Kasimov etc.)

Vyatka garmon was a prototype for many different types of national accordions in the Volga region and the Caucasus (see below).

The Saratov garmon (Russian: саратовская гармонь) is a diatonic, bisonoric garmoshka with bells which ring when the bass and chord keys are played.

The livenka (ливенка) or Livenskaya garmoshka (Ливенская гармошка) was developed in the 1860s and 1870s in the factories around the town of Livny (Oryol Oblast).

It was designed for the features of Ossetian folk music, and was adopted by other musicians from other Caucasian peoples, becoming popular all over the Caucasus.