After loading a package of spare parts into the trunk of the Muscovite, Ivan was happy to find cashback. In the trunk were a jack, a hammer, a cylinder wrench, a tire iron and a new canister of mineral oil. He also discovered the presence of a spare tire, which is not always possible to find in a used car.
The Muscovite started up immediately. The engine was running smoothly. The speeds were switched on clearly. All this pleased the new owner, as well as the fact that the car had been removed from the register yesterday.
While Vanya was trading at the market, he found a cell phone in one of the neighbors. After exchanging a few words with him, he found out where to buy such a useful device.
It turned out that in the two thousandth year, phones were not sold on every corner, at least in the regions. In Volgograd, the reseller was aware of only two points of sale of cell phones, both located in the city center. That's where Ivanov went.
The mobile phone store was located in a small pavilion. Once inside, Vanya felt like he was in a retro museum. Most of the tubes had protruding antennas. All are push-button. And their prices could scare many away if compared with the current incomes of the majority of the population.
The full-bodied saleswoman immediately turned to the only customer:
"Can I tell you something?"
After taking another look at the models, he decided to choose a cheap and reliable phone.
- Siemens A35 and Beeline SIM card. Choose the best tariff for outgoing calls.
- We recently received a shipment of Nokia 3210, would you like to see it? - The saleswoman smiled disarmingly.
"Why look at him?" A normal brick. But right now I need the cheapest possible dialer for work. Not up to fat.
- To activate the number, you will need to top up your balance by ten dollars. The subscription fee is ten dollars per month, incoming and outgoing calls are eighteen cents per minute.
It was unusual for Ivanov to hear prices in foreign currency in Russia. It seemed wild and slightly insane.
"My Lady, don't give Mina a pregnant head. Add another ten dollars to your phone account and announce the final price tag in rubles. I hope you accept them?
- Yes, of course, we only accept rubles.
- Nevertheless, you announced the prices in dollars.
- Can I teach you how to use a phone? It will cost five hundred rubles.
Vanya looked at the saleswoman as if she were mentally ill. His look was so expressive that she said:
- I see, don't. That'll be three thousand nine hundred and twenty rubles.
In order to understand how Ivanov felt when leaving the cellular communication salon, it is enough to give a simple example. The price of a liter of gasoline at a gas station is seven rubles, a liter of milk is four rubles, a dozen eggs are ten rubles, and a trip by public transport in Volgograd costs two rubles. At the same time, a minute of conversation on a cell phone is slightly more expensive than five rubles, almost like a liter of gasoline! They also charge a subscription fee. As a result, he left two guards' salaries in the store. But communication is necessary and important for the bucket business, and Vanya is used to always having a phone at hand.
The next place to visit was the Chinese market, where Vanya bought civilian clothes. I had to buy a lot of things from socks and underwear, to tracksuits, jeans and shirts. At the same time, he left pennies on the market by the standards of the future and as much as three thousand at local prices. That is, the entire summer wardrobe cost less than a push-button phone.
Without leaving the market, he dug into yesterday's newspaper ads and started looking for a garage to rent. After calling several owners, he chose a garage cooperative ten minutes away from the car market.
Half an hour later, a meeting with the garage owner took place. Just think, we managed to rent a spacious garage with a repair pit and round-the-clock electricity for only five hundred rubles a month for the rest of the summer.
The evening was approaching, and Vanya didn't want to spend the night in the car again. But this time he didn't rely on ads. There was a private area next to the garage cooperative. After driving through the streets and talking with the aborigines, Ivanov found the owner of a private house, a single mother who rented out a room for fifteen hundred a month. It was a gift from heaven. Although the house is unsightly and the amenities are in the courtyard, it is cheap and a three-minute walk from the garage.
The money was melting like snow in spring. Vanya had forty-five thousand dollars in his pocket this morning, and now there are only twenty-one thousand left. But at the same time, he got a wardrobe, a temporary roof over his head, a rented garage and a car, which is noteworthy, on the move. On the morning of the third, none of this happened, and on the evening of the fourth, it already does. An enviable height for yesterday's soldier.
In his previous life, Ivanov had to work hard and spend a lot of time and effort to make all this happen.
A visit to the grocery store and the market showed that you can eat for a thousand without straining for a whole month.
Vanya started the morning of June fifth with a trip to the bird market, the location of which he found out from the landlady of the house in which he rented a room.
He was interested in the market because of the hoarders who sell all sorts of stuff that they consider unnecessary junk. New tools have always been expensive, and reliable Soviet tools can be purchased inexpensively from such hoarders at a very tasty price.
The market pleased the guy with the abundance of sellers and offers, as well as the opportunity to lower the price well during the auction. There he filled the trunk with various wrenches, heads, hammers, files and drills, which are enough to repair cars and do simple body repairs. And he only paid a thousand for everything. The most expensive purchase was a transformer welding machine. The huge machine, weighing about thirty kilograms, was covered with a thick layer of dust, which made it obvious that it had not been used for a long time. There is practically nothing to break down there, so it was boldly bought.
But an angle grinder, popularly called a grinder, a drill and a compressor with a paint gun had to be bought with new ones.
By lunchtime, the guy's budget had lost seventeen thousand, but all the minimum necessary tools for a garage master appeared in the garage.
Ivan spent the second half of the day buying consumables: discs for a grinder, welding electrodes, solvent, degreaser, primer for cars, putty, sandpaper and paint to match the color of a Muscovite. He took everything except the paint with a reserve for the repair of several cars, further draining his budget.
In three days, the Muscovite was completely restored. All the dents are stretched, plastered. The body was repainted and shone with novelty. With a compressor and a gun, the painting was much better than with spray cans. He cleaned the interior to an almost new condition. I've run up to fifteen thousand kilometers. He cleaned the engine, gearbox and engine compartment to a shine. The car looked like it had just left a car dealership.
The next day, the Muscovite was sold in just an hour on the car market for forty-seven thousand rubles.
Ivanov plunged headlong into the perekupsky bucket business. He bought seemingly substandard domestic cars for a low price: rusty or slightly broken. The only criteria for him were a low price, no crime, and the possibility of restoration with minimal investment and time to spend no more than a week on repairs.
Over the summer, many cars passed through his hands. Not every one was sold immediately after the renovation. It was not always possible to make a serious profit. He resold some cars on the same day with a small margin, just washing and slightly tinting. But the bucket business was booming.
He had closed the loan long ago and had forgotten about it as something unimportant.
By the twenty-seventh of August, he still had a fresh four (VAZ 2104), which looked like new after his body repair. He made this car for himself. The best spare parts from those Zhiguli that passed through his hands migrated to her. Sleight of hand and no fraud: simply, the worse part was put on the donor, and the newer one took the place in the top four.
In addition, tools, wheels and spare parts were added to the garage. And, of course, Ivanov managed to accumulate a very substantial sum for these days - two hundred thousand rubles. He converted most of this money into dollars.
After paying off his debts, he loaded all his accumulated possessions into a four-pack and set off for Badgers. Even with the back seat folded, all the things couldn't fit in the cabin. A lot of junk, whose place is at a landfill or scrap metal collection point, had to be left in the garage, giving the owner a surprise. The Zhiguli were dragging behind them a passenger trailer bought cheaply from some grandfather, which, like the interior, was filled with junk: tires and used, but still usable, spare parts, oversized tools.
It took two days to get to Badgers. Sixteen hundred kilometers on a highway with a loaded trailer is a dubious pleasure. The car eats a lot of gasoline. It seems to everyone that you are driving slowly, and there are two brakes on the highway: a Dagestan truck with a terrible overload and a sick man on a basin with a trailer. And you're constantly being overtaken, which doesn't add to your peace of mind.
It's seventy-nine kilometers from Badgers to Chelyabinsk. On the one hand, a lot. On the other hand, it's only an hour away. The length of the city of Volgograd along the Volga is about one hundred kilometers. So if necessary, getting from Badgers to Chelyabinsk is like going from one end of Volgograd to the other.
During the journey, he was stopped several times by traffic police officers. For them, a car with transit plates was like a red rag for a bull. The numbers were overdue, but that wasn't a problem. Vanya rewrote the contract before the trip, changing the date in it. And according to the law, after buying a car, you can safely drive ten days before registration. The situation was more complicated with identity documents. A soldier discharged from the army is required to obtain a new passport within a month, but does not have an old one at all. It would be difficult to get home with an expired military ticket. But nothing by car, I got there fine.
When the Zhiguli parked near the foster parents' house, Ivan looked at his real estate with horror. He had forgotten how old this house was. The square one-story structure was assembled from planks, the gap between which was filled with sawdust. The paint has long since peeled off, and the fence in the form of a low picket fence is askew. The only thing that pleased me was the presence of gas, which was miraculously brought to the village and the house. Now he remembered that it was thanks to the gas that this house was able to sell in a previous life for forty thousand. As it was, he wasn't even worth the money.
The door of the hut opened with a creak of unoiled hinges. Olga came out into the evening twilight. Vanya barely recognized his stepsister. He had not seen her for many years and had managed to forget her appearance.
An eighteen-year-old round-cheeked girl with a thick build, a voluminous bust and wheat-colored hair pulled back in a ponytail. She's not beautiful, but it's hard to call her ugly either. Wearing an old robe didn't add to her attractiveness points. Vanya couldn't understand how she had been able to find a husband so quickly in her previous life, even with an apartment.
Squinting, Olga peered cautiously into the twilight.
"Who's there?" "What is it?" she asked in a trembling voice. "Who are you going to see?"
"Your own!
For a second, the girl's eyebrows furrowed, as if she was trying to recognize the voice, but soon her facial features smoothed out and her lips broke into a smile.
"Vanka?" Is that you, Vanya?
He did not expect to hear joyful notes, so he was slightly taken aback.
- As they said, when KVN was still funny: a thought came to my head with a friendly visit... Olga, it's been a long time.
He came through the gate with a couple of bags. Olga finally got a good look at her stepbrother and said happily:
- Vanka! Alive! I thought something had happened to you. Where have you been? Weren't you supposed to come home from the army in early June?
- The circumstances turned out to be beyond me and the desire to get home.
- Vanya, what happened? Are you sick?
"Not really. First I missed my train. Then there was no money. I had to stay late to earn money.
"What kind of car?" Did someone give you a ride?
- I drove myself. I had to buy a car, otherwise I wouldn't have made it home with an expired military ticket.
- Vanya, where did you get that kind of money?
- I took out a loan with horse interest. It's easy now. It's hard to give back. Olya, how are you?
"It's bad," she sighed. "I thought something had happened to you, because I haven't heard from you." I was afraid that you were like parents too...
- And what did you live on?
Olga lowered her eyes shyly, which she had not done in the past.
- First I borrowed money from the neighbors, then... I had to sell the TV. And then they advised me how to get an allowance. I enrolled in a culinary college in Chelyabinsk. After I enrolled, they started paying me an allowance. I was going to leave for school tomorrow morning, and here you are...
"Olya," Ivanov looked at his stepsister carefully, "is there something I should know about?"
Then his gaze caught on a gas pipe. It was cut off. Olga followed his gaze, sighed heavily and said:
- By the way, yes... I just wanted to tell you about it. While you were in the army and I was in the orphanage, utility bills were piling up. Then I didn't have the money to pay for communal services. In general, they charged us a large sum, and also cut off the gas and light.
- Perfect! Ivan drawled sarcastically. - And how are we going to solve this problem?
"Well..." the girl shuffled her foot. "I was thinking it would be nice to sell the house, and..." she hesitated. - And divide the amount between the two.
"Have you tried to sell yet?" How much is offered?
- Not enough... Without electricity and gas, with debts, they don't give you more than twenty thousand. If everything was fine, then you could push for forty grand.
- Olya, I'd rather get into loans and buy your share from you than give real estate to strangers. Are you satisfied with twenty thousand?
"Twenty?" - She brightened up. - Vanya, maybe we won't sell the house? It's better to pay off the debts and keep everything for yourself.
"Okay, my sweet peach. That'll be twenty thousand, and do whatever you want: pay off your debts yourself and keep the house for yourself.
- Eh?! - The girl was taken aback.
Last time, she initiated such a proposal, but now Vanya did not wait for them to sit on his neck, and switched to better defense tactics. As you know, the best defense is an attack.
- Well, no way! Olga began to boil. "Then you'd better buy half the house from me!"
- Okay. That's what I originally suggested, but you said you wanted to keep the house.
"Us!" I wanted to leave it to us.
- We are not husband and wife to live under the same roof. Tomorrow you will want to bring your husband here, then you will have children, you will bring your mother-in-law. Then I'll bring my wife... And we'll have a whole gypsy camp here. It doesn't suit me. The house must belong to one owner. I am satisfied with any option except selling the house on the side, since it will bring half as much money.
If Vanya was offended by Olga last time, now everything has happened exactly the opposite. The girl began to consider her stepbrother a scoundrel. And she didn't care that a little earlier she not only wanted to sell the house, but also tried to do it without Ivanov's participation. And despite the fact that Ivan offered a price twice as high as the market price and was ready to take on utility bills, she didn't care either. She ignored the offer to buy out the house herself, because she wanted to get rid of it and live in the city, and not get into debt for the sake of an old shack. At the same time, she got the impression that her brother was kicking her out of the house.
A warm, peaceful and quiet evening is not about this day. Ivan and Olga had a terrible fight, but in the end they agreed on the option in which Ivanov buys half of the house from his stepsister.
The next week is hardly an easy one. Ivanov traveled a lot to the regional center: first to get a passport, then to register a four-wheeler with a trailer at the traffic police. Then he had to travel to Chelyabinsk and meet with Olga in order to arrange a real estate purchase and sale through a notary.
The fuss and hassle plunged Ivan into a state of stress. And when one fuss ended, another began: repayment of debts on communications, registration of gas and electricity connections back. This is a slow process that can take up to six months, and Vanya lives without light, as if in the Middle Ages. So I had to butter up the people in the Energy Department and the Regional Gas with small bribes.
As a result, two weeks after returning to his native land, the guy had both gas and electricity at home. The house and fifty acres of land were registered as his property. There are no debts left. Everything seems to be fine, but there is a nuance. The house, with all its expenses, cost him thirty-seven thousand. Almost as much as the price of the same house with gas and no debts on another street. And it would really be easier to buy it by giving the foster parents' shack along with the debts to the stepsister. I wouldn't have had a fight with her, and I would have put all the problems on her shoulders. But now Olga considers herself an offended queen, while she received more money than expected and kept her nerves healthy. Vanya spent half a year's earnings of a worker from Chelyabinsk, and when the hassle was over, he came down with a severe cold.
While Vanya was lying in bed and recovering, he had time to think about how to continue living.
He was thinking what would be the best thing to do: invest in construction or buy real estate in Chelyabinsk? To do this, when he felt better, he went to the regional center for fresh newspaper ads and began to study the housing market.
The cellular connection has not reached the village yet. At least she worked in Chelyabinsk, but there was currently only one mobile operator, Shupshakar. Roaming calls with a Beeline Volgograd SIM card are extremely expensive. Therefore, I had to temporarily give up the phone. Moreover, the phone number was blocked without paying the subscription fee.
The average price per square meter of an apartment in Chelyabinsk ranged from one hundred forty to two hundred dollars. There was also luxury housing with completely different price tags, but Vanya wasn't interested in it. He had a well-defined budget. He operated with five thousand dollars. Surprisingly, the fact is that for this money it was possible to purchase a small studio apartment of thirty-three square meters. Or, no matter how crazy it sounds, a new injection nine from a car dealership! This did not fit into Ivanov's head at all. Where's the nine, and where's the apartment? He's used to the idea that the nine is ancient junk that costs nothing. In the future, a square meter of living space was worth as much as a budget car. And now you can buy an apartment for the price of a cheap car!
After that, he didn't think for long. After recovering, Vanya took the dollars and went to Chelyabinsk and spent three days searching for suitable housing. Soon, he exchanged the savings he had earned over a couple of summer months for a thirty-two-square-meter studio apartment, which he enjoyed like a monkey to a banana.
The apartment was in need of renovation, but was generally habitable.
The next day, he went to the garage cooperative, which was located near his new home. After reviewing the prices, it became clear that he could not afford to buy a garage yet. Garages in the cooperative cost from twenty-five to fifty thousand, and after all the expenses Vanya had only twenty left. But he managed to rent a spacious garage with a pit for five hundred rubles a month. Expensive, considering their cost. This way, you can recoup the cost of the garage in a couple of years of renting.
The advantage was that you can pay monthly.
Ivanov began to settle into the apartment. He brought the refrigerator and furniture to the apartment on a trailer from Badgers. The tools purchased in Volgograd migrated to the garage.
At the end of September, having settled in a new place, Vanya continued to engage in the bucket business, for which he had to purchase a SIM card from a local mobile operator.
This time, he didn't tear his veins like he did right after entering the past. He worked without much effort and without outright deception, but he still had to spin like a squirrel in a wheel.
The dismantled fortieth Moskvich was the first to be bought right in the same garages for three thousand. What the owner wanted to do with it, only he knows, he seemed to want to change the clutch, but got carried away, and then did not want to put it back together. A new clutch and a bunch of spare parts were included with the car. After assembling it and refreshing the paint for a week, Vanya sold the car for seven thousand, earning four on it.
Then it went on and on. By the summer, dozens of cars had passed through his hands, but no more than five per month. He used the profits to buy dollars.
Gradually, normal appliances appeared in the apartment. It was redecorated in a hurry.
At the same time, by the end of May, the guy managed to save seven thousand dollars. Of course, this amount is not comparable to the amount that he managed to earn in Volgograd, but Ivan, firstly, did not strain himself as much as in the summer of the two thousandth year, and secondly, he did not engage in fraud like molding thresholds from foam. He did the bodywork well, even if not perfectly. It is impossible to achieve the ideal in garage conditions and with minimal necessary equipment.
Two thousand bucks were spent on the purchase of two adjacent garages, which quickly turned into one large garage by the hired construction team. In June, Ivan moved into his own workshop.
During this time, real estate prices continued to rise. Now it was not possible to buy a studio apartment for five thousand dollars. Ivan was pleased with his foresight.
Further, he did not deviate from the chosen strategy, spending time and effort on the bucket business. By the end of the summer of two thousand one, he had managed to save eight thousand dollars, which he immediately spent on buying another studio apartment.
Old rustic furniture moved into the new apartment, and this property was leased for a long time.
The bucket business was booming. Ivan continued to work hard, earning capital by repairing and reselling old cars. He planned to move to the village and start settling in there. He wanted peace and quiet. In rare moments of relaxation, a plan for the development of a site in Badgers was born on a computer purchased for the new year.
Vanya was afraid of the upcoming wave of epidemics in the early twenties. Making plans far in advance, he was going to wait out the epidemic far from the big cities. As the experience of his past life has shown, it is best to do this in the outback, and it is more pleasant to do it in the comfortable conditions that he was going to create for himself.
Currently, construction is inexpensive. And although prices for building materials are rising every year, they are still affordable for the average Russian. Ivan was still slightly above average, but it's hard to call him rich either. Some clerk in the capital could surpass him in terms of income. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that an ordinary person cannot afford to buy an apartment every year, even in Chelyabinsk.