From my brother, re the mandolin dubbed Peri:
I think I bought it on the famous Old Arbat Street bohemian district in Moscow, thus in mid-July 1991. That's the same place where the guy did my portrait, an old Arbat tradition. The portraiters were out in force when I was there again last summer, as were the guys selling paintings. I bought kvas from a stall and wandered around, went into a couple of souvenir shops and a church, and decided against all the overpriced tourist trap eateries. (By the way, back in '91 I got back three weeks, not three days before the attempted coup against Gorbachev.)
He's off to Munich, so I'll have to wait to ask him if he got it from a guy with a thousand mandolins to sell, or a sort of antique/vintage shop/stand. The second would obviously bode much better for the mandolin's construction quality.
No comments:
Post a Comment