friends i made in Russia
These are just a few pictures of some folks I met, both Russian and American, while on the trip. You'll notice a few things that were not people, but I still became acquainted with during my stay.
Alexie - classical guitarist friend of Adam. I brought some strings over from the states and got to hear him play. He is awesome.
Arsen - plays piano, accordian, and now bass
Sergey and Arsen - brothers who i did some bass lessons with. spoke pretty good english. this was the day i thought the liver was a burger and ate it. i found out later what it really was.
This is Dema's bass player and I was embarrased to keep asking his name. I don't know what it is. I did spend some time playing with them.
Bob and Phyliss - friends from the Nashville area that I met after arriving in Russia. great folks.
This is the staple of every meal. Not even sure the proper spelling. Look it up.
Brad - he put the whole concert thing together bring together all of the musicians. great guy with a big heart.
Camp - Musical director and leader of our Volgograd team.
The Coker family - these guys are great. Adam made it a really special time for us there.
Dema (short for Demetri) - great guitarist and preacher. doesn't speak a lick of English. But we communicated throught the music.
Greg is Andy's brother and is one of the instrumental team leaders.
The two on the left were our interpreters. Lena and Lyudmila. The speak very good English fortunately. We couldn't have made it without them.
I had a great time with Andy. He is from up in NC somewhere. He, Greg, Nick and I spent a lot of time together.
Nick and I spent every playing minute together. He is a great drummer. We had a great time.
Vitaly turned out to be my brother. Well, not exactly. We just hit it off really well and ended up hanging out a lot. We will be lifelong friends.
Nikolai pastors a small church on the outskirts of Volgograd. He doesn't speak much english either, but has a heart of gold.
Polina (left) and Judy were two of my favorite gals. Judy and I traveled together from Nashville. Polina was from Russia.
Richie Kingsmore - I've been playing his music for years and finally got to meet him. Not only that, but at the final concert he had arranged a jazz piece that I was able to play on in a quartet of bass, drums, piano, and flute. It was a highlight for me.
I captured a picture of life in Moscow. In this case its the subway, what they call the Metro.
We didn't get into too much trouble. But whenever there was anything exciting going on, you could find us there.
We spent all week with these guys. They were great driving us all over the place.
I was able to eat dinner (supper) at Vitaly's flat on the last night. he prepared a traditional meal and this is what it looked like.
After our concert on the downtown Volgograd square, this group of high school age kids stopped by to try out the bass.
