In the Soviet Union, in 1927, a former member of nobility, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, works as a clerk until his mother-in-law reveals on her deathbed that her family jewellery had been hidden in one of the twelve chairs from the dining set. Since then he becomes a treasure hunter. Then Ippolit finds a con man, Ostap Bender. The later forced Kisa (Kisa is an Ippolit’s childhood nickname) to partner up with him. Through the process of elimination the two finaly discover the location of the last chair, but then Kisa bedazzled by close enrichment kills Bender. After that he discovers that the jewellery has already been found and the money from the sale of this treasure has been spent on building a new house. In this book Ostap represents values of the old order, egoism and individualism. This book is great for its citations. They’re very popular and often used in Russian speech. I can give some examples: 1) Maybe I should give you a key from the flat where my money is? 2) A hot woman is a poet’s dream. I think the width of vision is important thing in this book. You have a chance to visit a lot of cities of the Soviet Union with Ostap Bender. The way of life and world view are described very realistically. There’s a lot of humour. But it has satire, too. Maybe an English reader won’t like the ideas of communism presented in this satirical novel so I recommend to read this piece of literature only to that people, whose political views are neutral. The «Twelve Chairs» is a wonderful humourous adventure novel. If you want to understand how people lived in the Soviet Union you should try this fabulous (in my opinion) book. And if you like movies more than books, you can watch four-series film-musical by Mark Zakharov with Anatoly Papanov and Andrey Mironov in leading roles.
