I Finally Bought It!!!!

Today I made some calls and finally found a Russian Гармонь (Garmon) My buddy Mick Ewing was the first to show me one and I fell in love with it instantly and said to myself " If I get one thing in Russia, it will be a Garmon" At first I was having trouble finding them on the internet and then I went to moscow.ohx.ru which is like Russian Craigslist. I found a man by the name of Sergei Nikolaiovich who was a Garmon repairman. He had about 5 listed on the site so I called him and he told me to just come to his apartment and check them out.

When I got to his place I was so amazed to find that the ENTIRE apartment was filled with accordions of all types. He was a single man so you know what it is like when a single guy who has an obsession and little space to work with. Things start to get stacked on top of each other. I was totally bummed that I didn't have my camera to show you blog readers the amazing site of what must have been close to 80 accordions packed into a two room apartment looks like.

THIS IS Сергей Николайович (Sergei Nikolaiovich) ON HIS YOUTUBE PAGE GIVING TUTORIALS ON THE GARMON. THE BENCH HE IS SITTING ON IS HIS BED, AND THE ONLY... I REPEAT ONLY FREE SPACE IN HIS WHOLE APARTMENT BECAUSE THE REST IS FILLED ALMOST TO THE ROOF WITH BROKEN ACCORDIONS AND PARTS TO FIX THEM.

He was a totally nice man and as I described earlier, very enthusiastic about accordions and garmons and bayans. He gave me an 3 different options and then he showed me this one...

THIS IS MY NEW BABY. IT IS CALLED A VOLOTZ BECAUSE IT CAME FROM A CITY IN THE FAR NORTH CALLED Верхный Волоц (Verxnie Volotz) IT WAS MADE IN 1959... 3 YEARS AFTER STALIN'S DEATH. IT IS ALL THE ORIGINAL WOOD AND NEW INSIDES. IT WAS WAY TOO COOL TO PASS UP.

MY GARMON IS SO CLASSIC AND COOL. I REALLY CAN'T PLAY ANYTHING YET BUT I PLAN ON PRACTICING A LOT AND LEARNING SOME COOL RUSSIAN FOLK SONGS.