From the Notebooks of 1925–1937

Audio studio “Ardis” presents the notebooks of Ilya Ilf, one of the authors of the famous “Twelve Chairs” and “The Golden Calf,” in the magnificent reading of Honored Artist of Russia Vladimir Levashov.

In the 1920s Ilf worked as a newspaper man and journalist, and he worked for the newspaper of the railway workers “Gudok.” He traveled around the country on business trips and wrote reports. And his notebooks were filled with facts, observations, and the smallest details. He wrote down not for the reader—for himself. The notebooks were his internal literary household, his stash, from which many of the characters of his works were born.

“Be sure to write everything down,” he said to his friend and co-author Evgeny Petrov. “Everything passes, everything gets forgotten. I understand— you don’t want to write. You want to stare, not write, but then you have to force yourself…”