 These professional itinerant musicians would gather at regular meeting spots on particular dates to celebrate religious feasts, administer examinations for the induction of novices and masters, and collect money for placement of votive candles under icons of patron saints and to also discuss the business of the guild.During the Soviet period the Kobzar guilds ceased to exist, because the communist Soviet government executed all of the Ukrainian kobzars they could get their hands on and did not allow the formation of any new guilds.In the 1990s, the idea for the creation of a Kobzar guild in Kyiv was initiated by followers and students of traditional bandurist Heorhy Tkachenko - Mykola Budnyk and Mykhailo Khai.