Book of a lifetime: The Twelve Chairs by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov

From The Independent archive: Vitali Vitaliev on a hilarious, vitriolic and deeply anti-Soviet novel

Taking on the establishment: Ilf, left, and Petrov circa 1940 (Getty)

“There were so many hairdressing establishments and funeral homes in the regional centre of N. that the inhabitants seemed to be born merely in order to have a shave, get their hair cut, freshen up their heads with toilet water and then die. In actual fact, people came into the world, shaved, and died rather rarely in the regional centre of N. The spring evenings were delightful, the mud glistened like coal in the light of the moon, and all the young men of the town were so much in love with the secretary of the communal-service workers’ committee that she found difficulty in collecting their subscriptions.”

This is the opening paragraph of The Twelve Chairs, my favourite book of all time. I reread it several times a year – now mostly in English translations. Rereading my favourite Russian books in my second mother tongue has become an addiction: it adds some coveted balance and symmetry to my otherwise rather chaotic life. I find it both reassuring and calming – like looking at the quiet sea.

The Twelve Chairs and its sequel The Little Golden Calf were both penned by the brilliant Odesa-born tandem of Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Hilarious, vitriolic and deeply anti-Soviet, the novels became cult reading for the embattled Soviet intelligentsia. They were like a breath of fresh air in the stuffy communal flat of Soviet reality, replete with stale smells of cabbage soup and rotten political dogma.