A TRUE CHAMPAGNE HOUSE

SOME PEOPLE fantasize of living in a house filled with bottles of Champagne. For Eldar Ilchibayev, a builder from western Russia’s Ural Mountains, the dream was to build a house entirely out of bottles and he has now completed his mission. Ilchibayev recently finished construction of a house made from 12,OOO Champagne bottles. No, he didn’t drink the contents of the bottles in order to use them. Rather, he and his father spent two years collecting them from recycling centers, and neighbors also donated their empty bottles to help them. The frame of the house is made of timber beams and concrete is filled between the bottles to keep them in place. The project had been his late brother’s idea. After he passed away, Ilchibayev decided to build the house in his memory. It has now become a popular attraction for tourists visiting the area. If Ilchibayev had drunk all of the bottles of Champagne needed for the house, it would have meant more than 32 bottles per day for a year!