The twelve Chairs

"Twelve chairs" (1928) - a novel written almost a century ago, still remains in hearing. The story about how Ostap Bender, along with his "partner" Kisoy Vorobyaninov, are trying to find diamonds Madame Petukhova, hidden in one of 12 chairs of a furniture headset, gained fame of a truly “folk classic”. The names of the heroes - charming adventurers - became household, and the novel itself divorced quotes, withstanding hundreds of successful reprints and translations into other languages.
A book that is still not fully unraveled: do the heroes have prototypes who is hiding behind the figure of Ostap Bender? Perhaps these riddles will remain so forever. In the meantime, the "meeting continues, gentlemen of the jurors"!