Deribasovskaya Park

On the west side of this park is a pay toilet, between the Klarabara (Кларабара) and the glass casino.

(See below for more on the 12 chairs, for more on Humor day, click here)

On a bench sits the monument of Leonid Osipovich Utesov, a famous Odessa jazz singer and songwriter. He sits on a bench, and many tourists sit down and take a picture together.

• Alexander P. Tokarev is the sculptor of several monuments in Odessa, for a full list, Alexander P. Tokarev
• Also see Wikipedia on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonid_Utyosov Leonid Utyosov
• More on Leonid Utyosov

• Utochkin lived from 1876-1888 at Uspenski 23.
• Utochkin was the head of the first Russian airplane club at Deribasovskaya 5 (now the Continental Hotel), which was established on 11 March, 1908.

The plaque below the sculpture reads:

Utochkin is in the sky! To Odessa's favorite, aeronaut and dreamer, Sergey Utochkin - from grateful descendants 2.9.2001

Famous Odessites This is one of the articles on famous Odessites. See the entire list of Famous figures of Odessa. The 12 chairs story, the inspiration behind the chair monument in Deribasovskaya park/ Gor-saud (Горсад) is a modern Russian classic, known fondly by all of the former Soviet people. Ilya Ilf (1897-1937) and Yevgeny Petrov's (1903-42) Dvenadtsat' stul'ev ("12 Chairs" translated as "Diamonds to Sit On") is a classic treasure hunt adventure with a Soviet twist. In the opening scene, Ippolit Matveevich learns that in 1917, just before the Bolsheviks came to throw his aristocratic family out of their house, his mother-in-law hid her diamonds in one of the living room chairs.

Ippolit Matveevich decides to try to find the diamonds. He is your typical bumbling aristocrat (working as an insignificant office clerk), so he teams up with Ostap Bender, a cynical con artist who knows his way around Soviet Russia. The unlikely pair travels all over the country, usually penniless and only one step away from trouble, but always hopeful. One of the most hilarious chapters in the book is "Interplanetary Chess Congress", still perhaps the greatest piece of chess humor ever written. (Available at www.sovlit.com/chess.html)

The book barely squeaked by Stalinist censorship and was dutifully ignored by critics, but it became an enormous popular success. The Twelve Chairs entered into the popular consciousness in a way that is hard for Americans to envision. People memorized this novel, and held trivia contests based on it; quotes from the books entered the language as satirical one-liners.

That popularity has not diminished. On the contrary, as the Russia of today increasingly resembles the era of the novel, with its chaos, homeless waifs, and con artists, references to the novel in daily life are on the rise: restaurants are being named for the novel's characters, and newspapers name regular columns after them. The novel is a touchstone of Russian society, and anyone who studies the language and culture must become familiar with it.

Leonid Gajdaj's film, Twelve Chairs, was made in the 1960s. Mel Brooks's film version from 1970 received mixed reviews.

The duo also wrote "The Little Golden Calf ", in 1930 (translated in 1931).(See Golden Calf) It is the sequel to Twelve Chairs, and the rogue in this novel Ostap Bender is the same hero.

On an automobile trip across the United States the duo met Ernest Hemingway and Henry Ford, and after seeing over one hundred movies the two committed communists preferred their own country. This book inspired them to write "One-Storied America" (translated as Little Golden America in 1937). In large part this was an expose of the materialistic and uncultured character of American life, the work nevertheless indicates that many aspects of capitalist society appealed to the authors.

A quasi-sequel to One-Storied America work was the long story Tonya (1937), which portrays with satirical touches the life of Soviet people compelled to live in a capitalist society.

In 1937 Ilf died of tuberculosis which he had contracted on his journey in the United States. During World War II Petrov served as a war correspondent. He died in an airplane crash returning from besieged Sevastopol to Moscow on July 2, 1942.

--partially adapted from Lexiconbridge.com

The video may be ordered from the www.Lexiconbridge.com web site.

Yevgeny Petrov's and Ilya Ilf is a pen name. Petrov's real name was Yevgeny Petrovich Katayev, he was the younger brother of Valentin Katayev author of "A White Sail Gleams" (See Peter and Gavrik Monument) Ilf's real name was Ilya Arnoldovich Faynzilberg.

More information on Yevgeny Petrov, More information on Ilya Ilf)

Photos

		Photo from the city park in 2007	Toilet
			In the back of the park, are two female sculptures in alcoves, photo taken in 2002, before restoration
			Previously in front of the Utesov monument was a gray telephone booth with two speakers sitting on top. The telephone will play a person's choice of Utesov's songs. It was removed between 2002 and 2006

Notes

1. ^ Herlihy, Patricia (1987, 1991). Odessa: A History, 1794–1914. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-916458-15-6, hardcover; ISBN 0-916458-43-1; p. 36.

Continue your virtul tour by walking to the Grecheskaya Square and book store