Once upon a time there lived a very rich gentleman. Richer than the richest American billionaire. In a word, rich, very rich! He kept his money in huge warehouses. They were filled to the ceiling with gold, silver and nickel coins. There were Italian lire, Swiss francs, British pounds sterling, American dollars, Russian rubles, Polish zlotys, Yugoslav dinars - centners, tons of coins from all countries of the world and all nationalities. Paper money he, too, had countless quantities—thousands of tightly stuffed bags, sealed with wax seals. This man's name was Signor Monetti.

And then one day he wanted to build himself a house.

“I’ll build it in the desert,” he decided, “away from people.”

But in the desert there is no stone for construction, no bricks, lime, boards, marble... There is nothing - just sand.

- Doesn't matter! - Signor Monetti said to himself. – I’ll build a house from my money. Instead of stones, bricks, boards and marbles I use coins.

He called an architect and told him to make a plan for the house.

“Let it have three hundred and sixty-five rooms,” ordered Signor Monetti, “one for each day of the year.” And twelve floors - one for each month of the year. And fifty-two staircases - one for each week of the year. And let it all be made from coins, okay?

- But nails... You can’t do without them... You’ll have to bring them.

- In no case! Need nails? Take my gold coins and cast them into gold nails.

- And the roof needs tiles...

- No tiles! Take my silver coins and you will get a very good roof.

And the architect made a plan. It took three thousand five hundred road trains to bring all the coins needed to build a house to the desert.

And to accommodate the construction workers, four hundred tents had to be erected.

And the work began to boil. First, they dug a pit for the foundation, but did not drive reinforced concrete piles into it and lay slabs, but filled it with coins. One after another, dump trucks loaded with money drove up and dumped their precious cargo into the pit. Then they began to lay the walls: coin by coin - one on top of the other. A coin - a little bit of solution - another coin... The entire first floor was laid out from Italian silver coins of 500 liras. The second floor is made entirely of dollars...

The doors were also made from coins; they were carefully glued together. Then we started working on the windows, but there was no need for glass. It was replaced with paper money - Austrian schillings were folded with German marks and from the inside, from the side of the room, they were covered, like a curtain, with Turkish and Swedish banknotes.

The roof, chimneys and fireplaces were also made of metal money. Furniture, baths, water taps, carpets, stair steps, bars in the basement windows, toilets - everything was made from coins. Coins, coins, coins everywhere, just coins...

And in the evening, Signor Monetti certainly searched the workers leaving the construction site: what if one of them took away several soldi in his pocket or shoe?!

He even forced them to stick out their tongues, because if you wanted, you could hide a rupee, piastre or pezetta in your mouth.

When the construction was completed, there were still whole mountains of metal money left. Signor Monetti ordered them to be poured into the cellars, stacked in the attic and filled almost all the rooms with them, leaving only a narrow passage between the piles of coins so that one could get to them and count them if necessary.

And then everyone left - the architect, the foreman, the workers, the truck drivers. And Signor Monetti was left alone in his huge house, standing in the middle of the desert - in this money palace. Wherever you look - at the floor, at the ceiling, right, left, forward, backward, wherever you turn - everywhere you see only money, money, money. Because even the hundreds of precious paintings that hung on the walls were made of money. And the hundreds of statues that stood in the halls were also cast from bronze, copper or nickel coins.

Around Signor Monetti's house there was an endless desert. It stretched far, in all directions of the world. It happened that someone would fly from the north or south strong wind, and then the shutters and doors slammed, making an unusual sound, like a light musical chime. And Signor Monetti, with his exquisite hearing, was able to discern the clinking of coins in it different countries peace.

“This kind of ‘ding!’,” he noted, “is made by Danish kroner. This is “ding!” - Dutch florins... But the voices of Brazil, Zambia, Guatemala are heard..."

When Signor Monetti walked up the stairs, he recognized the coins he walked on without looking - by their sound under his heels (he had very sensitive feet). And, rising with his eyes closed, he muttered: “Romania, India, Indonesia, Iceland, Ghana, Japan, South Africa...”

Signor Monetti slept on a bed, which, of course, was also made of coins: the headboard was lined with ancient gold coins - marenges, and the sheets were banknotes of one hundred thousand lire sewn with double thread. He changed his sheets every day because he was an extremely clean person. He put the used sheets in the safe.

Before going to bed, he usually read some book from his library. The volumes consisted of neatly bound banknotes from countries on all five continents.

One night, while he was reading a book consisting of Australian State Bank notes...

First end

One night, Signor Monetti suddenly heard someone knocking on the door. And he immediately unmistakably determined: “They are knocking on the door, which is made of old thalers of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa.”

He went to look and made sure that he was not mistaken. It turned out to be robbers.

- Trick or Treat!

“Please, gentlemen, come in and make sure I don’t have a wallet.”

The robbers entered the house, but did not even think to look at the walls, doors, windows, furniture, but immediately rushed to look for the safe. They found it, but it contained only sheets. The robbers will not study what material they are made of - linen or paper with watermarks. In the entire house, from the first to the twelfth floor, there really wasn’t a single purse, not a single bag or sack. There were just piles of things lying everywhere in the rooms, and in the basements too, and in the attic, but in the darkness it was impossible to see what they were. And besides, the robbers already knew very well what they needed - they needed a wallet. But Signor Monetti didn’t have it.

At first the robbers got angry, and then they even burst into tears with frustration. After all, they had come all the way across the desert for the sake of this robbery and now they were forced to return empty-handed. Signor Monetti, to calm them down, offered them lemonade with ice. The robbers quenched their thirst and went into the darkness of the night, shedding bitter tears into the sand.

Second end

One night Signor Monetti heard someone knocking at the house. And he immediately unmistakably determined: “They are knocking on the door, which is made of ancient Ethiopian thalers.” He went downstairs and opened this door. In front of him stood two children lost in the desert. Hungry and cold, they cried bitterly.

- Help us please…

Signor Monetti angrily slammed the door on them. But the children continued to knock and knocked for a very long time. In the end, Signor Monetti took pity on them.

- Well, take this door!

The children took the door. It turned out to be very heavy because it was entirely made of gold. But if they bring it home, they can buy bread and milk and even some coffee.

A few days later two more poor children came to Signor Monetti, and he gave them another door. And then, when everyone found out that he had become kind and generous, the poor people rushed to him from everywhere, from all corners of the earth. And no one left empty-handed. To whom he gave a window, to whom a chair made of 50 centesimo coins, and so on. A year later the turn came to the roof and the top floor.

And the poor people kept coming to him and coming, from all over the earth, and lined up in a long line.

“I didn’t know there were so many of them!” - Signor Monetti was surprised.

And he helped them year after year, gradually destroying his palace. When nothing remained of the palace, he moved into a tent, like a Bedouin or a tourist. And his soul felt light, light, just completely joyful.

Third end

One night, when Signor Monetti was leafing through a book of banknotes before going to bed, he suddenly discovered a counterfeit banknote among them. How did she end up here? And maybe there is more than one fake one here? With excitement, he began to leaf through all his books one by one and found about twelve more of the same counterfeit banknotes.

“Are there any counterfeit coins in my house by any chance?” We need to take a closer look!

And he, as you already know, felt everything very subtly. And the very thought that somewhere, in some corner of his palace, whether on the roof, in the parquet, in the door or in the wall, there might be a counterfeit coin, did not give him peace, literally deprived him of sleep.

And he began to dismantle his palace in search of counterfeit coins. I started from the roof and went down floor by floor. And if I found a counterfeit coin, I was very happy!

– I’ll find out! This coin was slipped to me by a scammer so-and-so!

He knew his coins inside out. And there were very few fake ones among them, because he was always very careful and attentive when dealing with money. But for a moment, of course, everyone can get distracted.

In the end, Signor Monetti tore the entire house into pieces and found himself sitting on a pile of silver and gold rubble. He no longer wanted to build the house again. It's just not interesting. And it was a pity for the mountain of money. So he sat there angry and despicable, not knowing what to do. And then, either from anger, or from sitting for a long time on this pile of coins, he suddenly began to gradually decrease - he did less and less, until he himself eventually turned into a coin. Into a counterfeit coin. And the people who later took his money simply threw it away into the desert.

“We’re going to Sid, tomorrow we’re going to Sid” - you fall asleep with this thought and anticipate that you’ll wake up with it too, and it will be that same tomorrow, and we’ll be in it. And so it happens, and at first Sid means leaving the city and ice cream in a special foam box, three servings for each. The first - we are in the car, waiting for mom. She checks to see if they forgot to lock the front door. Then the car starts moving, our windows pass by. They glow, but it’s the sun, we’re not at home. The second is a ruined fortress on the seashore. I climb the tower and look far away. The sky is shining, the sun is reflected from the sea with thousands of sparkling blades; I try not to squint; A sharp white sail is moving along the horizon, under the overhanging sky. A cool red drop drips onto your fingers, then another - the ice cream melts. Third portion - we'll arrive soon, the sun is sinking into the sand. Sid are dunes to the right and left of the highway, and behind them are ridges of hills that look like stale bread. Sid is an unexpected patch of bright green grass here, it smells of stagnant water, a little further you can see the skeleton of a truck, ants are swarming in the former engine. The older I get, the closer the word “Sid” comes to the man who, seeing our car coming around the bend, rises from his dented straw chair under the acacia tree and waves to us.

We get out of the car and the doors slam. I try to take a breath, but I can't feel the air entering my lungs. Living beings die in such a situation, but this does not happen to us. The hot air just fills us; and we would take off like Balloons, but it’s just as hot around here, so we stay on the ground and head towards the house. Sid shouts to us: “Welcome!”

The road ends at Sid’s house and touches his front garden with tongues of cracked asphalt. The desert is everywhere, we are in it, but the road is surrounded by hills, and this is not visible. To understand where we are, we need to walk around the house or go into it and look out the window opposite the entrance. And then you see another horizon, not sparkling, but absorbing light in the line that separates the sky from what approaches it. The wind blows from there, carrying dust into the house - it pours out of cracks in the plaster walls, lies on the floor - whitish and transparent. On the bathroom door, the previous owners of the house - some kind of bankrupt geological office, it seems - even posted a sign: “Before entering the shower, shake the sand out of your head.” I automatically run my hand through my hair and hear the sound of hundreds of grains of sand falling to the floor. Dad says that one day the plaster house will be filled to the top with sand, and in winter it will rain heavily, and the plaster house will melt in it like a cube of yellowed refined sugar. Sid invites us to drink lemonade.

Early in the morning we go behind the house to see what the wind has brought during the night. The sun has just risen, and the space in front of us is lined with gray-blue shadows - from the house, from the hills, from the clouds sliding across the sky that has not yet separated from the earth, brightening from within, from us. I turn around and look at the house. On this side it is indeed covered with sand almost to the windows. We walk along the facade and look at our feet, looking for the “catch” - what was left lying when the wind retreated to the horizon. We find a dried plant with branches towards the house. On other mornings, Sid found rusted tin cans, burst helium balloons, sanded teeth of small animals, a square mirror, a crumpled postcard with a tower by a mountain river, pebbles with shellfish bodies imprinted on them, a photograph of a boy on a wooden horse, gun casings, worn-out coins , scraps of wool. One day he discovered the skeleton of a medium-sized bird - with folded wings and a “compact” head lying neatly between them. It looked like a watch in a glass case, inside of which its entire mechanism was visible. Sid entered the house, holding it in his palms, and saw that a bird was darting about in the room - a nondescript, pockmarked bird with a curved beak. A few seconds later she flew out the window facing the road, on the leeward side. Sid stood in the room with a skeleton in his hands, and then swung and threw it out the opposite window - for symmetry. The skeleton lay there for several days, and then disappeared somewhere. Since then, Sid has not kept anything he found behind the house; he has returned everything to the sand. “An empty house is a point of balance,” he said. Another time, on a dune that had formed by morning behind the house, he discovered a living bird - wounded with a broken wing. He brought her into the house and placed her in a cardboard box. The wound gradually healed; the bird lived with him for several years. In the morning he sat her on the windowsill, always on the window that looked out onto the front garden and the road. She spent there long hours, moved reluctantly. When we visited Sid, we drove up to his house, I noticed her cautious profile, her black wide-open eye above the window frame. The bird also became "Sid". When she died, her body, which Sid discovered in the morning in a cardboard box, was shriveled, dull - almost a skeleton. Sid buried this bird in the front garden, under an acacia tree.

One morning Joseph came out of the desert. It so happened that I noticed him first. Sid gave me his binoculars and I was just setting them up. There was sand in the binoculars, too, and everything I saw - dunes, dunes, ridges of hills to the right and left of me - was under a sandy shower and had no clear outlines. Suddenly, a blurry yellow dot appeared right in front of me. I tried to see it without binoculars, but I only saw a grain of sand, brighter than the rest. I could not determine how far away she was from me. Finally, I managed to set up the binoculars. The sandy shower behind the lenses did not stop, but I saw a man approaching us from the desert. We met him behind the house. The man became bigger and bigger. He was barefoot, wearing canvas hiking pants that were torn at the knees and, for some reason, wearing a yellow shirt with some kind of bears, trains, stars, and flowers. I looked at them without looking away. Joseph slowly approached, I saw tangled, bleached hair, red skin, black, cracked lips and mica-like, motionless eyes. We set him up in the house, under a fan, and gave him water. Two days later, Joseph smiled, told us his name, said that winter was coming, and so it was, but we didn’t find out anything more about him. True, there was no one to find out, because we soon returned home, and Sid, it seems, did not try to find out anything.

The next time we headed out into the desert, it was winter. I was driving the car, my parents were sitting in the back seat. On the way, I bought them ice cream. When, late in the evening, a familiar house finally appeared around the bend, Joseph rose from his straw chair under the acacia tree and waved his hand to us. He treated us to lemonade and told us that Sid had left - not long after us: Joseph woke up one morning and Sid was nowhere to be found and his things were gone. However, he did not have things in every sense of the word. We were sitting under an acacia tree, and a gray dog ​​on three legs came out of the house, hobbled towards us, lay down heavily by the straw chair, and put its muzzle on Joseph’s shoe. I went into the house and went to the opposite window; sand spilled over the windowsill.

***
We return after dark. Mom looks for the key in her bag, can’t find it, even dumps its contents on the steps - there is no key. “He probably stayed in the desert,” says dad. “There’s nothing left!” I take the key out of my jacket pocket and hand it to my mother. It has gotten colder, but the key is warm to the touch.

_____
Subject:
“A shirt with yellow flowers and four cucumbers” from

This stunning home is located practically in the middle of the desert in Scottsdale, Arizona, USA. Despite this, the windows of the house offer stunning views of the beauty of the desert, which stretches for 60 km. Originally thought out roof overhangs and the orientation of the house protect the interior of the villa from the unforgiving desert sun. When building the house, the architects tried to implement one condition of the owners: “Outdoor living,” so a summer kitchen, terrace, outdoor pool and jacuzzi were thought out here.

House with an area of ​​520 sq. m. was built in 2012 according to the design of architect Mark Tate. He says: “My clients are parents and grandparents who love spending time with their family. So they planned to build their dream home in the desert mountains of Arizona. At the same time, they asked to create, as it were, three separate living spaces for each age group of a single family.

Mark Tate says: “I wanted to bring the desert landscape into my clients' homes so they could enjoy nature. We were very careful to integrate the house into the landscape.”

The home sits on 5 acres and features stunning views of the wild desert and Arizona mountains. Architect Tate managed to balance the interior space of the villa and the surrounding desert landscape, creating a harmonious and beautiful structure.

Mark Tate says: “I wanted to create a house that was a mystery, that didn’t immediately reveal all its secrets, but at the same time the house needed to be cozy. A large entrance made of steel attracts guests to front door, and a small fountain fascinates with its murmur. What is located inside such a house is a mystery.”

The lower two-thirds of the house is made of glass, allowing light in as well as privacy. “Glass creates a beautiful shine,” says Tate. “The glass has iridescent dichroic flakes that make it iridescent and change color throughout the day.”

A small fountain is located between two cacti in the middle of the courtyard. The window from the dining room overlooks the fountain, so the whole family loves to admire the overflow of water during lunch.

The plaster on the wall here is part of a long, curved wall that extends the entire length of the house; sandblasted concrete blocks make up the wall on the right. The square hole design is repeated throughout the house.

The plan shows how the curved wall runs through the house. The windows frame the vast landscape, while the walls mask the view of the road and neighboring houses.

The large fireplace attracts with its coziness in the evenings.

The large living room also has its own fireplace.

The living room offers sweeping views of the surrounding landscape.

Bathroom design.

As is known, peoples of Africa are very diverse in shape, layout and materials used for construction. And if the shape and layout of dwellings most often depend on certain ethnic traditions, then the choice is dictated, as a rule, by natural and climatic conditions, as well as by the way of life of the African people ( sedentary or nomadic). So, in semi-deserts they use stone, clay, low grasses and shrubs; in savannas - palm trees, cotton and millet stalks; in forest areas - bamboo, raffia, rattan, ficus and banana leaves. Africans also use silt, manure, mats, fabrics and animal skins to furnish their homes.

Today, in African cities, the work is predominantly carried out by professionals, but in rural areas, the main work of building houses is still carried out by male heads of households, and it is completed by women, who cover the structure with straw and leaves, plaster it and decorate it.

The main part of African life is spent outdoors - this is where the hearth is located, women do household chores, and men do crafts and hunting. A house is needed mainly for lodging and shelter from bad weather. For this reason, the bulk of traditional African homes do not have windows. The only exceptions are some regions of Africa with a cooler climate (mountainous regions of Ethiopia, Cameroon and Nigeria), where houses are equipped not only with windows, but also with heated beds. This one consists of adobe benches with a firebox, decorated with stucco ornaments and painted with geometric patterns.

Round African houses

In Africa, the dominant shape is a cone with an oval or round base. In different regions, different round houses are built, which may differ from each other in the height of the walls, the slope of the roof, the presence of windows and decoration. In some places, houses are decorated with paintings and carvings, while in others the appearance of the houses is quite simple and monotonous. In the simplest type of house, the roof and walls are inseparable from each other: they are usually woven from tree branches or reeds, they have no windows and are equipped with only one low entrance. to his appearance such huts resemble bee hives. Similar structures are characteristic of tropical regions of Africa.

If we turn to the northern borders of Africa, we can see that here architectural art has reached much greater heights. Since time immemorial, huts have been built here with folding doors decorated with elaborate carvings and relief bronze plates. However, it should be noted that such houses belonged exclusively to African rulers. The common people lived in simpler houses.

One of the most famous representatives of the round ones is rondavel, which is mostly common in countries South Africa. Typically, a rondavel is made from materials that are available in nature. Most often, the walls are built from stone, and the “cement mortar” is made from earth, sand, or a mixture of both with manure. In order for the floor surface to be smooth, it is treated with a manure-containing mixture.

The frame of the rondavel is built using tree branches, cleared of knots, or beams made from round timber. The finished frame is covered with reeds, which are attached to the base using grass ropes. Depending on the complexity of the structure, making a roof can take from 1 day to a whole year, since the work is done from the bottom up, and only one section can be tied at a time.

Huts - African houses for nomadic peoples

Migrations and the wandering lifestyle that some lead African peoples(for example, Bushmen), does not require durable housing and permanent settlements. IN in this case An ordinary hut or a primitive one, which most often has a traditional hemispherical shape, is sufficient. Natural caves or depressions in the ground often serve as shelter for nomads, if, of course, they are nearby.

In nomadic tribes, women have been involved in the construction of covered huts for centuries. Usually it takes no more than 1-2 hours to build a hut. First, a hemispherical frame is constructed from branches that are tied at the top, and then the structure is covered with reeds, grass or mats. Inside such huts there are small depressions in the ground that serve as a bed and a hearth. It is interesting that for many African nomads the symbol of home is fire, but not a hut. In the cool season, the fire in the hearth is maintained all night, and the next morning it is covered with ash.

Moving from one place to another, Africans often return to places rich in food and sources of water, but never live in their previous settlements, but build new ones. For parking, as a rule, those places where there are large trees are chosen - their shade can provide shelter from the hot sun. Most often, huts are located around trees. The average size of such a hut is 2 m in height and 2 m in diameter.

African caves are home to desert dwellers

In the Sahara, the housing issue is resolved somewhat differently than in other areas of Africa. here they look like deep earthen pits in which interior spaces and a courtyard are equipped. Today in the Sahara, on the hillsides there are many caves where Berbers (troglodytes) currently live.

The craters in which the caves are located can be quite large. In the middle of such a cave there is a courtyard - haush, the diameter of which is on average about 10 m, and around it there are rooms reaching up to 20 m in length. Berber dwellings often have several floors, and moving from one floor to another is often possible not according to the traditional