“The Twelve Chairs” is a novel by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov, written in 1927. The action takes place in a Russian provincial town. A former nobleman who, after the revolution, has become a petty office clerk, Ippolit Matveyevich Vorobyaninov, learns from his dying mother-in-law the secret of her pre-revolutionary diamonds, hidden in one of the twelve chairs of a furniture set. The local priest, Father Fyodor, who has come to see Klavdiya Ivanovna to hear her confession, also becomes privy to this secret. The priest and the nobleman set off in search of the furniture containing the precious gems.