Well, Donny, it’s a bit flattering that I’m associated with events in Russia :-) but this one does have some connection to me as during this tour Bert Smorenburg visited Moscow where I met him and had a little chat after the show. Perhaps, it’s a sort of a indication that even in the largest city in Europe (12-13 million people) an open presentation by a demonstrator of this level attracts 20-30 people at best.

It was also about a year before “Ukrainian crisis” and “isolation” of Russia, which practically doubled the prices on instruments. Most of people of Yamaha Music I was dealing with at that time left the company for some reasons; we had no Peter Baartmans or Bert Smorenburg in Russia since then.

Meanwhile, comparing to current problems it doesn’t look so serious.

Perhaps, waiting for perfect conditions is never a good strategy; it’s like focusing on resources which you don’t have instead of using ones you do have.

It’s usually when my arranger keyboard gets old, it forces me to focus more on my guitar and electric piano sounds – these things are more constant. Still, I have a feeling that it’s the arranger which helps me to express myself the best (or just makes me believe so) and I have my doubts whether my next purchase should be a decent guitar or I should spend twice more money on SX900, which, I’m afraid, is rather close to my S950 after all.

I'll agree on that they are except for the sx900/sx700touch screen pretty close indeed as is the S970/S975 also.