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| Russian Bombing of Kiev |
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| Russian Bombing of Maternity Hospital |
After all Arts and Music are a method of expression. This was exemplified in yesterday's cruel and needless bombing of a theater that had been turned into a bomb shelter. Someone had even painted the word CHILDREN on the roof. Despite this, the theater was bombed, destroyed by heartless soldiers. Many women and children were killed.
As this is a guitar blog, my thoughts turned to the amazing guitar builders and luthiers that make their home in the Ukraine. In researching these builders I was struck with the fact that most of them have connections to Russia, either through training, mentoring, or from living in Russia. However these builders all live and make their living in the Ukraine. I pray that all are well and safe.
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| Alexander Momot |
At that time he met a "world of guitar makers" in the Ukrainian city of Kharkov city. Prior to the current war he was still working in Kharkov.
Another guitar master builder is Oleg Stefanyuk. There is not much information about this excellent classical and flamenco luthier. However he certainly builds some excellent instruments.
Guitar master luthier Berezhnoy Igor Vasilyevich worked in Kharkov. prior to the war. Vasilyevich was born on October 3, 1962 in the city of Kungur in the Perm Region, He grew up in the family of a serviceman.
Until the age of 16, he grew up and studied in a closed military camp, where he built his first guitar
In 1982 he came to live in his historical homeland in Kharkov, where he met the leading masters of the city, He became friendly and kept up communications with other Ukrainian builder which helped to improve his skills and experience.
In addition to making acoustic guitars, he also makes folk instruments, such as kobza, and also carry out maintenance and overhaul of other stringed musical instruments. In 2004 in the city of Odessa he became a laureate of the international competition of guitar masters with a classical guitar made of Indian rosewood.
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| Evgeny Labunsky |
Evgeny Labunsky, was born in Odessa in 1955. He graduated from high school, and then went to a polytechnic institute and worked as an engineer before the start of perestroika.
At the same time in his youthful years, he became fond of playing guitar for tourists. He realized that it was impossible to play a guitar bought in a department store for 13 Soviet rubles without repairing it. Therefore, while still a schoolboy he worked on carrying out "after-sales" preparation of several guitars.
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| Guitars by Evgeny Labunsky |
By 2000 I became the chairman of our section.
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| More Guitars by Labunsky |
His preference is to make instruments of traditional classical shape and sizes for nylon strings. And he also uses traditional materials. Sides and backs in rosewood and maple, with the tops in spruce or Canadian cedar.
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| About Lanbunsky's Guitars |
On rosewood instruments I install soundboards from Canadian cedar, on maple. For plywood instruments he builds the tops from Russian spruce.
For his standard premium instruments he uses a traditional classical scale of 650mm,
He states that he also makes a "quarter size instrument with a scale of 555mm. He prefers using Rosewood, Canadian cedar on the bodies and sides, and ebony on the fingerboards He gets much of his wood, fretboards, and machine heads from Germany from the finest music stores. At the request of the customer he will embellish his guitars with mother-of-pearl.
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| Viktor Alekseevich Syrovatskii |
Syrovatskii writes poems and songs and periodically go on stage with them, and often goes on various creative trips.
Once, at a the festivals, fate brought me together with Kharkov guitar master Vladimir Oleinichenko. His guitar needed repair, and he took it to his shop in Kharkov.
Once in the workshop, he realized that he wanted to do this craft, and immediately asked for it as an apprentice. At that time his father was still alive, and he blessed me by allowing him to quit the factory job to study with maestro Oleinichenko.. Since then is has been making musical instruments for many years.
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| Syrovatskii at work |
Dmitry Yeremeyev is the only Ukrainian luthier that builds electric guitars, and his Mera brand instruments are amazing.
In his own rather esoteric words, "Everything in the Universe is a trinity of Matter, an Information(eidolon) and a Measure(MERA in Russian). A MATTER is TRANSFORMING according to a MEASURE. The measure of a guitar (MERAGUITARS) is the SOUND, the ERGONOMY, the RELIABILITY, and the LOOK. These four criteria forms a conceptual Measure(MERA) of a guitar.
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| Mera Guitars |
TRANSFORMING a MATTER according to the matrix of MERA (considering all the partial measures ) one can get an exclusive innovatory instrument that have an unusual awesome characteristics improved a lot grades up.
This fact makes a musician to feel delight as much as a listener and also opens a totally new possibilities in Creation and Creativity." Check out his amazing creations.
I hope and I pray that this unjust war comes to a swift end and does not escalate.
Click on the links below the pictures for sources. Click on the links in the text for further information.
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