A well-known paradox: not very rich people buy a house in Europe. And then they suffer that they cannot live in it.
— In Tuscany, of course, sunsets … And such luxurious whites in season!
— Sunsets in Tuscany? And I thought the main thing in Tuscany was the Medici Renaissance and the steak. Behind the sunsets, please come to us, to the Finnish lakes, to the blue waters, to the blue firs.
A well-known paradox of our time: not the richest people buy real estate in Europe — but simply because it is much more affordable than in Moscow. Across the sea, a half-carriage car — and there is no need for transportation.
But I always think with sadness: I’ll buy it, so what? I will live and work here, and my sea view will be idle there? Children, as a rule, do not need parental treasures: at best, they will be sold, at worst, they will be squandered. And the routes that attract people are changing rapidly: go and drive today’s young people to Karlovy Vary or Baden-Baden, which ruined more than one generation of Russian classics. The answer «to old age» also creaks with unlubricated wheels. Of course, there is poetry in such a dream, but today preparing one’s joy for old age is a sour joy, and it’s not our way to prepare a sleigh in the summer, to think ahead, forgiving one’s way to the future with Schengen square meters.
When they ask me: “Do you already have one? In Greece, there is now a house for the price of ten square meters in the Moscow center!” — I shrug my shoulders: I’ll buy a house, but how can I get life for it?
Home is where life is. I won’t be able to go to the same place as usual, just because it’s paid, and if I don’t go, then why? “And you,” I usually ask in response, “do you often visit your villas?” The question is tactless. They begin to make excuses from him and, in the end, they certainly offer to come to rest in their silvery beauties on the azure shores. This proposal is truly polyphonic, and it is impossible to refuse, because there is too much behind it. To refuse is much worse than spitting into the purest Finnish lake or throwing candy wrappers at Signoria Square, on which their windows overlook.
It is absolutely necessary for every owner of a piece of paradise that at least someone has been in it, therefore, a bloody battle is going on for friends and relatives who do not see the point in owning without using it. They are in great demand, there are queues behind them, they are offered everything in the world for one simple service — to come and live in an idle house. And give the whole event precious meaning.
Otherwise, all these houses burn the soul of the owners, it seems to me. They hurt with their uselessness. They grieve more than other worries, like lifeless monuments to the loneliness of the owners, the absurdity of their efforts, the uselessness of victories. No amount of money will make a cleaned pool splash, and roses well-groomed by a gardener will please the eye. And it does not matter at all how many hundreds of years olive trees live if we are not in this grove.