The money burned my thigh. It's kind of stupid to become a multimillionaire and not take advantage of it. It's one thing when there's just a lot of finance, it's another when there's a lot of it.
The badgers continued to lose people. The old people left for another world, reminding of the frailty of existence, the youth, as before, left for the cities. Almost half of the plots in the village were abandoned.
Vanya bought out all available real estate in Badgers at bargain prices. It so happened that many abandoned plots stood next to each other. He managed to buy out one street for twenty houses entirely. Numerically, it turned out to be two huge rectangular plots of five hectares each, which were separated by a wide street.
There he launched a large-scale construction. I paved the street and the entrance to it at my own expense. He installed barriers and checkpoints on both sides. I hired security.
The plots were surrounded by tall, sturdy and pretty fences. The areas in front of them are concreted and landscaped with coniferous trees.
Then a serious construction company with its own architects and designers was hired. She has commissioned a landscape design and land development project.
On the right side, located closer to the riverbank, the construction of a business complex began, the central element of which was a one-story house with a width of ten and a length of forty meters.
There are only two hundred square meters allocated for the living area, which includes four bedrooms and two studio rooms. Each family member has their own bathroom. Vanya did not forget about the rooms for a comfortable life: storerooms, a laundry room, a boiler room, a spacious kitchen-dining room.
The house was built using modern energy-efficient technologies, that is, it provides everything that was missing in Ivan's makeshift construction: underfloor heating, central air conditioning, ventilation.
Then there is a recreation area with a sauna and a swimming pool.
The main highlight, completing the construction, was the hundred-square-meter dream garage with a factory slipway and an electric lift, combined with a highly equipped workshop with state-of-the-art machine tools.
In addition, there is a huge dry and heated garage complex for twenty cars on the site.
On the other side there was a large playground and a sports ground.
The site itself began to transform into a place where it is pleasant to live. Cobblestone paths, trees and shrubs everywhere, lawn grass in summer and lots of greenery around. There is a convenient car access to the house.
The site opposite was being built up for staff: houses for guards and servants, a guest house, and a simple bathhouse.
Perhaps it was paranoia in Van, but he hired security. Not those guys with bulky bellies who can only handle a junior, and that's not a fact, but solid guards who have gone through special training and served in difficult troops, with correspondingly high pay.
The children grew up, life flowed, and the audiences of the Ivanovs' video hosting channels expanded. The family also flew abroad a couple of times a year. But Vanya was haunted by thoughts about bitcoins. They were begging to be put into action.
He is used to the fact that money should not be a dead weight, but should work. He didn't want to spend the entire amount right there, and he didn't want to sell the pools during the year.
He started consulting with lawyers. As a result, I found out that, in principle, you can invest anything. You want a car, an apartment, and if you want, then bitcoins. The main thing is to come to an agreement.
And then he started looking for a company in which to invest a huge amount of one million bitcoins, that is, several billion dollars.
But I wanted to invest for a reason. Vanya's age was approaching forty years. The body made itself known about its wear and tear either by back pain or pressure surges. He didn't want to die again. More precisely, he was not afraid of death, because he had already died once, but, like any person with a healthy mind, he wanted to live longer and for his family to live long, happily and be healthy. So he started looking for ways to prolong his life.
Whoever is looking for it will find it. And no, it wasn't Ivanov who discovered the elixir of immortality, but the Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraMedica. She announced the development of a "cure for old age."
In fact, the cure for old age is not a magic pill that you drink and become younger. This is a whole complex of gene therapy and nanorobots embedded in the patient's body. Neither one nor the other exists yet, but technology is developing so rapidly that success is just around the corner.
Ivan did not consider himself a stupid person, but he did not consider himself a genius either. He understood that when such a treatment appeared, it would initially cost a lot of money, so there would probably be a queue of millionaires and billionaires. And to be at the forefront, if he lives to see this deadline, you need to be a co-owner of a pharmaceutical company. If he does not live to see it, then his children or grandchildren will receive privileges, which is also not bad. Therefore, he began to look for ways out for the leadership of Astramedic.
It was only in January of the twentieth year, when the first reports of a new virus began to spread around the world, that they managed to arrange a personal meeting with the Swedes. Vanya went to Sweden alone. I mean, without a family, but still not completely alone. He was accompanied by three people from an office involved in the support of international transactions: a lawyer, an economist and a translator.
Negotiations with the big shots of the pharmaceutical company were successful.
The company's turnover is just over twenty billion dollars, and its net worth is around fourteen billion. It is no wonder that when they were offered investments for the development of a rejuvenation project in bitcoins, which at the current exchange rate were worth more than eight billion dollars, Ivanov was accepted with open arms as the main shareholders of the company with the right to influence its policy. In theory, he should have received half of the ordinary shares, but none of the owners of the company agreed to this. But we managed to bargain for a third, which is very good.
Initially, it was not assumed that bitcoins would be sold instantly. The investments are designed for a long period of time. Therefore, if we estimate the future courses of the cue ball, it turned out that Ivan invested even more than the cost of the entire pharmaceutical company. He knew about it. The owners of the Astramedic certainly knew about it. At the same time, everyone was satisfied with the deal.
Ivan liked the way the law firm's specialists worked. Although they charged a lot, high-quality services were never cheap. After thinking about it, he hired this firm on a permanent basis to represent his interests in the tax inspectorate and the courts. He himself, being the owner of a large fortune, was afraid to mess up and go to cut down the forest. After all, he knew what country he lived in. On the other hand, most of his assets are located abroad, which is a huge plus.
It just so happens that owners of large businesses in his country are sometimes, but with enviable regularity, persecuted. After that, their business, as if by magic, changes hands. Businessmen who have spent billions have to flee abroad. When assets are located in another country, it is much more difficult to take possession of them. That's why such people are often not touched.
Ivan did not want to move to another country, and he had a good life at home. But still, just in case, he decided to hedge his bets and buy a house in several countries: Sweden, Spain and the UK.
In March, the whole world was put on pause. The new virus has paralyzed all business sectors, and caused the most significant damage to small business owners. In a previous life, it was at this moment that Ivanov went bankrupt and lost his car service.
Life has become more difficult. Now you have to wear gloves and a mask to get out.
The Ivanovs tried to visit crowded places as little as possible, but they couldn't do without it. Their daughters and all the children from the district center were transferred to remote education. Although those children who go to school in the neighboring village continued to attend the educational institution. There are difficulties with the Internet and computers in villages. On the one hand, four Gees have Internet everywhere, but in the same Badgers or the neighboring village there are many poor families who do not have a computer or an ancient system unit with a pentium four on board, which does not handle modern tasks, acts as such. People live better in the district center: Most of them have jobs and more modern computers, and the Internet is often less difficult.
The Ivanovs' estate was serviced by servants. A housewife and two handymen who performed the duties of a gardener and a janitor were hired as such. Three people were enough to keep the house, the plot and the surrounding area clean and tidy.
The guards got expensive and high-quality thermometers. All staff were checked for fever before going on duty. In case of deviations, the person was not allowed to work.
The servants lived in a house built for them. The guards did not live in their house. They took turns on a daily basis, and the house was used as a place to relax and monitor the territory through a variety of surveillance cameras everywhere.
Being a co-owner of a large pharmaceutical company is very beneficial not only financially. In August, the Ivanovs, like the families of all pharmaceutical company owners, received a vaccine developed at AstraMedica. The vaccine has been tested on volunteers, but has not yet been certified. But who cares? The main thing is that she worked. All Ivanovs and all their service personnel were vaccinated. The Swedish doctor, who arrived with the vaccine and stayed in the guest house, closely monitored the patients' condition. Only after making sure that everything was in order, he went back to Sweden.
By the end of the twentieth century, there were no people in the world who had not heard of cryptocurrencies and bitcoins. There were constant articles about them on the Internet, on TV, and in newspapers. As a result, Mikhail suddenly remembered that a long time ago, a friend almost kicked him into buying a hundred bitcoins for ten dollars.
He rushed to remember the password from the bitcoin wallet. In the end, I remembered, but I didn't know how to withdraw the money. He had to turn to a friend for help. On New Year's Eve, he sold all his bitcoins for twenty-six thousand dollars, becoming a millionaire.
***
The next five years turned out to be difficult for the inhabitants of the whole planet. They tried to fight the lung virus, and most countries even announced free vaccination. But there were still opponents of vaccinations.
The virus turned out to be insidious. He mutated very quickly and required new vaccines. But most of the people vaccinated with the old vaccines were mildly ill. It was found that if you get vaccinated every six months or a year, the risk of death is seriously reduced. The Ivanovs had no problem with that. They were supplied with fresh vaccines on time, one might say, from the laboratory table. But many people died from the virus.
The lung virus has divided people's lives into before and after, just like in their previous lives. Wearing masks and gloves in public places has become a mandatory attribute. Without this, people refused to be transported on public transport and served in shops. People without masks were fined. But there were still individuals who didn't care about the rules. Everyone had their own reason. Someone believed that because he was vaccinated or had been ill, he did not pose a threat to society. Someone was sure that the disease was a myth invented to stupefy the population. But all these people did not understand that the rules were written for everyone without exception. The government can't control every single person, it doesn't care about motives. It's easier to force everyone to wear masks in order to minimize the risks of an epidemic due to a new strain of the virus.
Because of this infection, classes at school were constantly canceled. The children of this generation were rapidly becoming dumb. Sheep with a stool worldview were graduated from schools. Of course, we are not talking about everyone, but we need to face the truth - children do not want to learn. They want to play and have fun. If they are not forced to study, then most of them will not strive for knowledge. Higher education institutions even had to lower the examination bar for applicants, otherwise they would face a shortage. But vocational schools, which have long been renamed technical schools and colleges in the modern manner, were bursting with students who failed to enroll in universities, academies and institutes.
Ivan, knowing full well that his children would also become dumb blondes, took all measures to prevent such a development. He did not, like many officials and oligarchs, send his daughters to study abroad, but hired highly qualified tutors for them.
The twins were initially indignant and protested, even Natasha tried to defend them, but Ivan was adamant. Children should be smart. A smart person who is able to turn on his head is more likely to achieve something in life and not fall for the bait of scammers who have spread like mushrooms after the rain, will not fall into the clutches of sectarians and financial pyramids, which are also plentiful. Trying not to raise unscrupulous bitches and gullible fools, he instilled in his daughters universal human values, a skeptical attitude to life and distrust of strangers. It was difficult. The hardest thing for him was to refuse endless teenage wishes.
It's worth looking at the Internet, as you notice the news. The daughter of an oligarch, a reckless driver, and cutting off other motorists, drives drunk on the roads at the wheel. The son of an official knocks down people at a bus stop. Then another major, drugged up, drives an expensive foreign car into the Eternal Flame, after which he urinates there. Looking at this, Ivan became afraid for his daughters. He was afraid that living in permissiveness, they would turn into the same inhuman majors.
When asked to buy a new iPhone, he offered his daughters to earn money and buy their own phones. He didn't send them to sell pies at the train station or work for his uncle for five kopecks. Help in the garage, wash the car, work as a courier for the delivery of his correspondence and other non-burdensome and feasible activities for teenagers. And he paid his daughters just enough to make the necessary purchase. He supplied them with pocket money, but in minimal quantities. Sometimes the children of middle-class parents felt better off than the daughters of a multimillionaire. But it worked. Lena and Ira had a core and an understanding that if they wanted something, Dad wouldn't just give it to them. There will be no freebies. But there's always a job. So they were faced with a choice: either to work and get what they wanted, or to roll up their lips.
The twenty-fifth year turned out to be a joyous one for Russians, finally, in August, the government announced the end of the pandemic and the abolition of the glove-mask regime. Many people breathed a sigh of relief, but there were also those people who were used to going everywhere wearing a mask. They continued to dissect in public places with their faces covered. Six years ago, they would have been looked at as lepers or madmen. But over the years, everyone got used to seeing nothing but masked faces around them, so no one reacted to them.
At the same time, many varieties of the lung virus have not been completely eradicated and defeated. It's just that doctors have learned how to fight the disease, and most people have acquired immunity. The virus has become something like seasonal flu, which was once also considered a deadly disease.
The flu has been killing many people every year for a century. But everyone is so used to it that they often don't even go to the doctor at the signs of this disease. And especially gifted comrades even go to work, infecting everyone around them. At the same time, you can voluntarily get vaccinated against the flu, but few people use it. The same thing happened with the lung virus. Those who do not want to get sick are vaccinated on time. Those who don't care, no one cares about them.
In schools and kindergartens, children are vaccinated on a voluntary and compulsory basis. That is, it seems like you need parental permission, but if you find a mother or father from an ardent anti-vaccination group, then write-it's gone. Does the child have no vaccination? So he's not allowed to go to school. Does the child not go to school? An inspection from the social service will come to the family. As a result, either the child will be vaccinated anyway, or he will go to a boarding school, where he will be vaccinated without fail.
But such a situation was only in rare countries, for example, in Russia and China. That is why the situation here turned out to be the most stable. The rest of the world continued to be periodically bombarded by outbreaks of the lung virus precisely because of the abundance of anti-vaccination alarmists, whom no one was fighting.
***
Ivanov stood in front of three video cameras, which were mounted on tripods and filmed him from different angles. He was recording another video for a video hosting service.
With a friendly wave of his hand, he smiled and began:
- Hello everyone! Ivanich is with you again. If you come to my channel for the first time and don't know what it's about, I buy and restore cars here. You can see our new guest in the background.
He stepped aside, picked up a video camera and began to walk around the car. Then he returned, stood in front of the cameras and continued:
- Yes, you saw for yourself - this is a Lada Kalina Cross from the last year of production. As you know, due to stricter laws in the field of inspection, the operation of defective vehicles is threatened with criminal prosecution. Many people who are used to treating the car carelessly have found themselves stuck against the wall. They were left with a choice: either bring the car to perfect technical condition, or get rid of it.
Vanya noticed that his blonde-haired daughters had entered the garage, but he did not get distracted and continued:
- This copy is not in the worst condition, but the owner did not delay the repair. I managed to buy this Viburnum at a price slightly more expensive than scrap metal. In this video, we will begin to bring this copy of the domestic automotive industry into perfect technical condition. To do this, I bought two buckets of Japanese bolts. First, let's lift the car on a lift and assess its technical condition, estimate the investments. If it turns out to be too expensive to restore, then in the same video we will scrap it. But, yogurt on the lips, I admit, I would not like to. Car fire! High ground clearance, a sixteen-valve engine, a station wagon, and it costs pennies. Which is better suited for fishing or utilitarian operation?
Unable to stand it, Lena got out in front of the cameras.
"Pa-a-a-p," she looked at him with sad blue eyes. Taking a deep breath, she continued, "Did you have a difficult childhood like ours?"
Ivan is very familiar with this look. That's how his daughters looked at him when they wanted to ask him to buy something.
- My dear daughter, I had a wonderful childhood! - He answered sincerely.
- So your parents bought everything for you?
"No, honey. Until I was six years old, I lived in an orphanage and wore clothes that smelled of hopelessness. When I was adopted, I felt like the happiest person in the world.
- Dad, are you an orphan?! - a shocked Ira got into the frame.
Lena was as surprised as her sister.
- yes. And as for your question, Lenochka, they bought me only the most necessary things: clothes, shoes, school supplies. It was just a blessing! You don't have to carry stinky old things after someone - everything is new and your own... If I wanted something more, I had to get it on my own. Elderly foster parents, who in the nineties were living on a pension and an orphan's allowance, raising two orphans, could not afford to spend extra money.
"Dad, who's the other one?" Ira asked.
- The foster parents adopted another girl from the orphanage. But we had a fight a long time ago and didn't communicate anymore.
"Irka, wait a minute," Lena resolutely stopped her sister. "That's not why we're here... H-hmm... Dad, is that where I started? - she lost her way, as if she had rehearsed the text before, but everything went wrong.
"Because," Vanya smiled warmly at her, "you think you had a difficult childhood full of hardships. And I think my childhood was great. When I was your age, I dreamed of owning a bike, but I knew it was useless to ask for one. Therefore, I was looking for other ways. I found a frame and rims with spokes in the trash. My father gave me money for tires and cameras and for a ticket to the regional center, where I bought them, after which I assembled a bicycle for myself.
"How awful! - Ira rolled her eyes.
Lena nodded in agreement and asked breathlessly:
- Dad, how did you survive this nightmare? Didn't you even have an iPhone?
- I still don't have it. Only Xiaomi," he winked at the camera and already said to her, "Xiaomi note fifteen is top fat for your money!"
Elena drew attention to herself with an indignant exclamation. - Stop with your advertising, you're sick of it!
- Well, you know, honey, if I don't advertise products, manufacturers won't send me anything.
"You're rich!" - She continued.
- I am rich not because I spend a lot of money, but because I know how to properly allocate expenses and find new sources of income. If I can get some top-end phones for free and equip my house with modern household appliances, why would I buy all this? And about your first question... Back then, no one in the village even had a wired phone. The first cell phone appeared here in the early two thousandth years... I have. Bought with the first money I earned after the army. If you thought that I was born rich right away, that's not true. Okay, what did you want?
Irina pouted her lips and muttered:
"Nothing anymore...
"Shhh!" her sister hissed in her ear. "Dad, don't listen to her. We were wondering if you needed help. We can easily!
- What do you want to buy?
- Well, pa-a-a-P...
- Don't push it. I can see right through you, like Superman. So what do you want?
— well... Lena poked at the concrete with her toe.
Ira took a deep breath and confessed:
- You know, the new iPhone is coming out soon...
"I understand," Ivanov's eyes twinkled merrily. - It won't be on camera to tell the video hosting service not to ban child labor exploitation, but my Kercher is idle and my entire car collection is dirty. And the bottom of the Viburnum is covered in mud. It's a move to shoot this.
"You got the hint," Ira rejoiced. - We will do everything!
"Yeah," Lena sighed sadly.
Immediately, she received an elbow poke in the side from her sister, who pulled her out, hissing furiously in her ear.:
- Shut up, you fool, and be happy, otherwise they will force you to climb through garbage cans and assemble a new one from old iPhones! Did you listen to your dad's story about the bike?