photo by the constant skeptic

He is Nikolai Sutyagin.  He is a man who has seen it all.  Well, if not “all”, he’s seen quite a lot.  He was born and raised in a lowly communal flat in Arkhangelsk, Russia.  That’s in the northern part of European Russia, near the White Sea.  He got in some trouble at the tender age of 14 and got sent to a boy’s prison.  When he got out he worked in construction to support his single mom and his sister, and because of his insane work ethic he got referred into an “outside the box” type of working in Russia.  It’s called shabashing, and shabashniks work for the money they merit, instead of the general working system inside a socialist (read:  in this case communist) government.  He was earning way more than guys who were far more educated, and when Gorbachev came in and made Perestroyka happen (the restructuring of the government so that people could own stuff) he used his money to buy a lumber yard and start his very own contracting company.

He got rich.  Really, really rich.  He decided that he needed a house that reflected his status in the Arkhangelsk society (his status was the richest dude in a very poor town) but that he had all this lumber and labor, so why not build his own?  What resulted was the house you see in the image above.  It started out as a mere two-story building (two-story is the limit in those parts) but he didn’t like the look of it and made it taller.  And taller.  And taller. It’s a tower of a ramshackle log cabin.  It’s a log cabin mansion. And it is in fact so tall now that it’s a danger to even walk around on the highest levels, and the idea of building a fence or railing on the higher levels has been floated. But what would the fence look like? Well, unique-looking fences are all around us, whether they be London, England fences or Richmond Va fences, you can find unbelievable, pristine fences in every city of note. So, it shouldn’t be too hard for Mr. Sutyagin to find inspiration.

The owner of this cabin eventually got put in prison for 4 years.  Some accounts say it was a racketeering charge, others say he kept a dude imprisoned in a shack.  Either way, his enemies took the opportunity to put all his vehicles into the river, and to steal all his stuff.  He came out of prison completely broke, but lives in the first two levels of the house with his wife.  In squalor.

The government and the townspeople are not impressed with the structure, and are lobbying to have it demolished.  Sutyagin has gone on record saying the top 12 or 13 stories of his house are “purely decorative”, thus making the building proper a mere two stories tall.  Who will win?  Who do you think should win?  Leave a comment below.

This house sure is a doozy, or at least the fall from it is. The archway at the bottom, while sacrificing some stability, is a nice touch. Do you think that the designer of this house likes roofs? As if this house needed to be more top-heavy. My real question is: Where is the electricity coming from to operate that lift? I imagine that it would be a little windy all the way up there. A great little detail that just proves the amazing things people can do with photoshop these days.

There is no running water or electricity, but the property, which sat at the end of the private, muddy road about 300 yards from his closest neighbor, is listed for $69,500. It does not include his house, a cabin, which has been removed and is now on display in Washington, DC in the Newsuem.

The property is listed by John Pistelak Realty of Lincoln, Montana and he offers an obviously secluded, one of a kind, piece of infamous US History.

The land is forested, with tall trees and a chain link fence topped by barbed wire. Makes you feel all warm and fuzzy, doesn’t it? There is a tree with FBI carved into it; no one knows why, just part of the charm of the place.

When called about the property, Pistelak would not comment on the property and later would not return any phone calls.

Ted Kaczynski is in a maximum security prison in Colorado serving a life sentence for killing three people and injuring 23 more. He is Harvard educated and a mathematician to boot and during 1978 and 1995 was on a big mail bombing spree. He was protesting advanced technology. He caused law enforcement the country’s most expensive and longest manhunt.

His own brother turned him in to the law in 1996.

Kaczynski was at his cabin in Lincoln, Montana when he was captured in April, 1996. In 1998 he plead guilty. He was named the Unabomber because some of his targets were collage scholars.  It stands for University and Airline Bomber.

Related articles

• Fence Me In – Richmond’s Fencing Experts (richmondvapresents.com)
• Free Rain? Not in Colorado (lawsome.net)
• 20 Signs You May Be Living Within Your Means (makethelist.net)
• Harvard Universty – There is no “i” in Univeristy (funnytypos.com)
• Scientific Challenges to Over-Socialization (geopolicraticus.wordpress.com)

Want the convenience of apartment living but don’t want to give up on things like your garden or sunlight? Then there is a perfect apartment for you in lovely Rotterdamn. Referred to as the Cactus House, the twisted design allows for large balconies which aren’t directly overlapped by upstairs neighbors. The end result is a great deal of sunlight and the ability to keep a garden. The downside is that the apartment building looks a lot like Dagwood’s dream sandwich.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t shoehorn a Star Wars reference in. Feel free to supply your own.

Related articles

• The Most Common U.S. Grasses (infographicsshowcase.com)
• World’s First Hybrid Electronic Tugboat is a ‘Clean Machine’ (theairquality.com)
• Beer Pong and the Supreme Court (jeffgeigercounters.com)
• Going Green … on Gas! (gogogreencars.com)

What happens when you combine an architect, activism, and a latrine?

Don’t be alarmed. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you; that is a toilet-shaped house and it’s real.

Sim Jae-Duck, an architect from Seoul, Korea, is the mastermind behind this what some might call a masterpiece and others might call a master piece of s*** (pun intended). Surprisingly, the inspiration and meaning behind this $1.6 million home is a lot deeper than you might think. Sim has felt a deep connection to toilets as long as he can remember and even before that; his mother intentionally gave birth to him in a bathroom due to a family belief that bathroom births led to long and healthy lives.

Already in his 70s and still going strong, Sim took on the toilet house project with an activist purpose in mind. Sim, who is chairman of the organizing committee of the Inaugural General Assembly of the World Toilet Association, has been campaigning for clean and beautiful toilets since 1995 when he was major of Suweon Korea, when he spearheaded efforts to spruce up the country’s facilities before hosting the 1998 Summer Olympic games and 2002 World Cup. He says that 2.6 billion people live without toilets today – a problem he is trying to remedy, in part, with the toilet house.

The house was unveiled in 2007 as part of the annual World Toilet Association meeting. The “Toilet House,” as it is affectionately called, is the world’s only latrine-shaped building. Sim chose to build the house 30 miles south of Seoul in Sim’s hometown of Suwon after tearing down his former home.

Featuring two bedrooms, two guestrooms, and four deluxe toilets, including one in the center of the house with clear walls that fog up and play classical music when occupied, the house can be rented out for $50,000 per night. Visitors have to pay $1 for a glimpse of the “porcelain” wonder. All proceeds from the house go toward improving subpar bathroom sanitation in impoverished nations.

“The toilet revolution should start with talking about toilet issues freely,” said Song Young-kwon, head of the organizing committee at the time of the house’s unveiling.

The building has been aptly named Haewoojae, which translates to “a place of sanctuary where one can solve one’s worries.” Its steel, white concrete and glass construction emulates the feel and industrious nature of its real-life counterpart. At 24.5 feet tall, the second story of the toilet bowl opens onto the roof with a garden and includes a water collection system to conserve drinking water.

Guest Post by Dana Bashor

Dana Bashor is a multi-faceted talent. Dana Bashor is known for many things but most of all she is an actress, model, and singer. Dana has been working in the industry as a model and Actress for 5 years. She is currently running her own business as well as freelance writing on topics such as consumer awareness and astronomy. Dana currently helps contribute to topics such as planet antares for Wikipedia and other websites.

If you find yourself driving up the I-94 towards the Illinois-Wisconsin border, you will feel that you have lost your mind and landed straight in the middle of a full-blown mirage around the halfway point.  Looking to the right, you will catch sight of an image directly out of the Nile River Valley and the ancient land of pharaohs, and not of the nearby Fox River Valley, or whatever other slow, meandering rivers flow through the flat, forested landscape of Northern Illinois.  Emerging from the dense forestry off into the distance, you will discover a golden pyramid, along with a giant statute of Ramesses II, but this is no hallucination.   And it is most certainly a bizarre roadside attraction.

Built by Jim and Linda Onan in 1977, they were inspired by a University of Wisconsin study suggesting that pyramids generate energy.  This is based on a generally wacky seventies cult theory regarding “pyramid power.” Mr. Onan had a long-standing interest in all things Egyptology, and intrigued by the mysteries surrounding the supernatural powers associated with pyramids, the Onans built their home as such.  Prior to earning their fortune in the garage-building business, the Onans satisfied their pyramid yearnings by merely placing a cardboard pyramid in their dining room.  Once finances allowed, they made themselves a more lavish pyramid, this time a replica of the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.  The Onans use five particular words to describe their unique home: power, gold, mystery, exotic, and impressive.  But they should have probably decided on either verbs or nouns when describing their home, and not both, because their brief and odd description of their strange home makes them sound a bit like illiterate crazies.

The golden pyramid house of Wadsworth, Illinois is presently a private residence inhabited by the Onans; however, from 1978 to 1981, the place was open to paying visitors and even had a gift shop on site.  Despite their current desire for privacy, this ridiculous structure is crying out to be photographed.  This can be accomplished by simply pulling up to the iron gates surrounding the property and snapping a couple of pictures to the chagrin of the home’s owners.  Please keep in mind that unwanted visitors have been chased by dogs while venturing within the property in the past, but curious travelers can get a great view of the house by peering through the locked gate off of Dilleys Road.

The exterior is obviously designed to look exactly like an ancient Egyptian pyramid.  The gold pyramid house stands 6 stories tall.  The 17,000 square-foot roof is made up entirely of stainless steel plates electroplated with gold.  It is generally thought to be the largest 24 karat gold plated object ever created.  The home also contains a triple-pyramid topped three-car garage, a 64 foot-tall and 200-ton statute of Ramesses II, a metal palm tree, and a driveway lined with 80 stone sphinxes.  In fact, the replica statute of Ramesses II in Wadsworth, Illinois is larger than the original in Egypt.  You may also notice that the home site is situated on a natural spring, and the water from the spring is so pure that Jim Onan is allowed to bottle and sell it, reportedly.  Water also forms a moat that encircles the entire structure. This moat is 20 feet deep and spring-lake fed. Therefore, the pyramid technically resides on an island, and you need to pass over a causeway to access the home.  Last but not least, there is a burial mound recreating the tomb of King Tutankhamun on the property.

You cannot presently go inside the home, except on special occasions when tours are offered to the public.  However, the walls are adorned with hand-painted hieroglyphs.  The basement, originally meant to house a swimming pool until water table problems interfered, is now the theater where Onan greets entering tour groups.  The particular contents and design of the upper floors, which contain the bedrooms and observation room towards the “point” of the pyramid, are not clearly known.  These sections of the pyramid are never open to the public.  According to sources, the house’s interior has a modern colonial and country décor, with just a few Egyptian statutes littering the sitting areas.

There are also several myths regarding the gold pyramid house, including the suggestion that the underground spring water simply and suddenly bubbled up out of nowhere at the center of the pyramid one day.  Moreover, in 1986, story goes that hordes of black birds started attacking those utilizing the north entrance to the pyramid’s “Chariot Room.”  And according to legend, black birds also protected the north entrance to the real tomb of King Tutankhamen.  Freaky, huh?  Also, those with a strong belief in the ancient powers of pyramidology claim to have often felt powerful energy at the north wall of the home, and also in the middle of the meeting room, which happens to reside directly above the source of the spring.

Notably, Linda Onan now runs her own online Egyptian gift shop.  Jim Onan also sells Pharaoh’s Gold II on this site, which he brews himself.  This beer claims to use a recipe that is over 4,000 years old, and was originally discovered while analyzing dried sediment found in the ante-chamber of an ancient temple.  And in 1993, the Onans offered their gold pyramid home as a means to help pay down the national deficit, basically offering the federal government use of their home for tours to earn substantial money, much like the Hearst Castle is utilized in California.

The Gold Pyramid House is located at 37921 Dilleys Road in Wadsworth, Illinois.

About Dana Bashor

Dana Bashor is the founder and owner of Dana Bashor Consulting Services. Dana Bashor consults for small-to-medium sized businesses and provides management tools and tips on her website. On her free time Dana Bashor loves to freelance on different topics and provide consumer alerts for sites like planet antares scam alerts.  Catch up with Dana on her blog or connect with Dana Bashor on facebook.

Related articles

• Top 10 Theories about the Lost City of Atlantis (toptenz.net)
• Best Coloring Pages Sites (verybestsites.com)
• Healthy Concession Food? (drivinganddining.com)