GG Akhmetov

Nursultan Akhmetov builds dombras in a workshop outside the city, carving the two-stringed voice of the music from single blocks of pine as his father taught him, each instrument a season's work that must ring true at the end or become firewood. Musicians drive for days to join his waiting list. He thinks he is teaching. Every match comes with observations, alternatives and a short account of what the position was really asking for, offered in the manner of a man passing something on, and none of it is instruction, because he is simply having a good time and has never noticed the difference. He carved the board he plays on. He shapes a position slowly and with care for how the whole thing will sound.