I actually knew very little about who Baartmans was when I was invited to become his "student" for a few day – I think that a Russian department of Yamaha just was very short of candidates, so they saw my video on social media that I posted in their group and contacted me. He was teaching us to be demonstrators like himself, but it was prior to 2014, then the mess between Russia and Ukraine started and Yamaha didn't proceed with that project (nevertheless Yamaha Music still officially works in Russia). We even dined together with him and other students. But I kept in mind that he was just doing his job there; I couldn't even get his personal email (understandable, although that could be a doing of a Russian department);
Still, I had a hope that I would meet him again somewhere;
Well, certainly it's sad on many levels,
Maybe he's playing music on some new level right now; but we still have to do the best with what we got