Balalaika madness

Olga sent me to YouTube for some virtuoso (electric) balalaika. Check out the scratching around 3.38.

Turns out he’s also a musical comic.

Comments

Feb 27, 2010 at 23:02 • Ryszard Szopa

WOW. He's like the Russian answer to Tommy Emmanuel (who is btw from your region of the world).

Feb 28, 2010 at 12:02 • tikitu

Wow, I didn't know him... impressive. (He's from about 2000km from where I grew up, according to a google maps distance hack. Which is roughly twice the distance from here --Amsterdam-- to Poland. But admittedly he's on the NZ-facing side of Australia.)

Feb 28, 2010 at 15:02 • Ryszard Szopa

"Region of the world" is a broad term, and that's precisely why I used it (as I remember about your Kiwi sensitivities). I consider Amsterdam being in my region of the world. Bah, even more: when I feel generous I consider Madrid (roughly 3000 km from Warsaw) to be in my region of the world! And I would definitely feel generous if I were on some other hemisphere. Not to mention that Australia is New Zealand's closest neighbor, you speak the same language, and your flags differ by two stars (one of which is, let's face it, not very big). Wait, shouldn't you in fact be happy that I am not confusing you for an Aussie?

(Sorry, too big of a temptation to resist ;)

Feb 28, 2010 at 17:02 • tikitu

I know, I'm just pulling your chain. I am, though, constantly amazed at the difference in scale between here and there (or here and North America, for that matter). 2000km there takes you from one country to another, with nothing in between except ocean. I wonder how many border-crossings one could make on a 2000km journey across Europe, with the right itinerary?

Mar 3, 2010 at 22:03 • Ryszard Szopa

Actually, that's a very interesting question, how many borders you can cross during a 2000 km journey through Europe. I played a bit with Google Maps and I got 11 borders in 1994 km... Can you do better? :)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Kilkis-Polykastrou%2F%CE%9A%CE%B9%CE%BB%CE%BA%CE%AF%CF%82-%CE%A0%CE%BF%CE%BB%CF%85%CE%BA%CE%AC%CF%83%CF%84%CF%81%CE%BF%CF%85&daddr=41.607228,22.82959+to:Sofia,+Bulgaria+to:Lugoj,+Romania+to:Osijek,+Croatia+to:Ljutomer,+Slovenia+to:Graz,+Austria+to:bratislava,+slovakia+to:Zlin,+Czech+Republic+to:Rybnik,+Polska&geocode=FT6KcQIdyj9ZAQ%3B%3BFZmDiwIdtN5jASn1ezHLgoaqQDFgXr9pEqAABA%3BFcskuQIdxGlOASlRJElWvb5PRzGk9TY91x0W6Q%3BFcMwtwIdrfgcASl1gHJpqOdcRzGVEaQhVnKMWw%3BFWLQxQIduCL3ACmP4qft10VvRzHGE54_DHuohw%3BFQwzzgIdO5_rAClRAi24eDVuRzHMGJdqeJe0fA%3BFZiv3gIdbgkFASmXYcoKNolsRzFoQ4j9gpsfYw%3BFXAk7wIdcZsNASkNjohMrQwTRzFPIayoFkyNQQ%3BFZ5__AIdbf4aASlJjp1B1kgRRzFROLX5-UBtwg&hl=en&mra=dpe&mrcr=0&mrsp=1&sz=7&via=1&dirflg=w&sll=41.795888,23.280029&sspn=4.594368,9.744873&ie=UTF8&z=7

Mar 4, 2010 at 00:03 • tikitu

Somewhat trivially, I think I can. You go Greece-Macedonia-Bulgaria, pretty close to their three-way boundary point. So it should be possible to also score the Greece-Bulgaria border, at the cost of a little fiddling around. And so on for similar three-way points later on. (Or aren't we allowed to recross a crossed border, even if we don't score it?)

In any case I'm not going to try to properly best your record. I have a review to write. (And a game of Fallout to continue.)