On December 4, the Spanish-language channel of the Discovery network premiered “Apocalipsis Maya,” a three-part series on the end of the world according to the fabled Mayan calendar. In addition to talking with contemporary Mayan priests, archaeologists and true believers, they interview people across modern America who believe an apocalypse is coming, and visit small communities where bunker engineers and ark builders are running booming businesses amid fears of an impending catastrophe.
If there is one common thread that runs through the end of the world scenarios, it’s “the world is coming to an end and I’m going to make a buck in the process.”
Of course Ark architects and bunker builders will happily take people’s money to build boats and shelters. The customer is always right. And if they’re not, well the ark can be a weekend getaway in 2013 and beyond and that new bunker will make a swell cellar. (OK, if there’s a Great Flood, an ark will be swell, but a bunker? Phooey! It’ll just be a big, dark fish bowl in your backyard.)
The Internet is chalked full of bunker builders. Bunkers are available for commercial, military, government and, of course, residential purposes. Some bunkers appear to be worthy of Cold War paranoia and others ideal for narco-traffickers to hide from other narco-traffickers or anti-narco-traffickers.
Ark builders are out there, but not as visible. However, one fellow in Russia, an engineer named Evgeny Ubiyko, has designed and built “an $80,000 emergency pod that can survive magma and magnetic storms.” If the pod rolls down a hill, people inside will survive. It floats, too. But most importantly, Ubiyko believes his design is vital to the survival of, well, if not the world, certainly select Russians, and he is beseeching Putin’s government to buy thousands of them as soon as possible.
However, Valdimer Putin, the most interesting man in the world (and if you don’t believe me, just read up on what the guy does, it’s truly inspiring – well, as inspiring as an old KGB agent can be; however, he is a worthy successor to Jimmy Bond’s Blofeld) would likely look at Ubiyko and laugh and tell him “The world will not end until the vodka is gone!”
*Yo, man, is this the end of the world?
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