Ilya Ilf

Ilya Ilf was a Russian writer who worked together with Yevgeny Petrov (a pen name; real name: Yevgeny Petrovich Kataev). He was the coauthor of the famous novels The Golden Calf and The Twelve Chairs. He wrote numerous feuilletons, articles, and the travel book Little Golden America. He was friends with Yuri Olesha and Mikhail Bulgakov. He worked for the newspaper Gudok. He was a talented photographer. His real name was Ilya Arnoldovich Fainszilberg (ILF are the initial letters of the author’s full name, Yekhiyel Leyb Fainszilberg; this was the customary way of signing literary works in traditional Jewish literature beginning in the early Middle Ages). Ilya (Yekhiyel-Leyb) Fainszilberg was born on 3 (15) October 1897 (he himself celebrated a day later, on the 16th, in Odessa). He was the third of four sons in the family of bank employee Arye Beniaminovich Fainszilberg (1863–1933) and his wife Mindl Aronovna, née Kotlova (1868–1922), originally from the town of Bohuslav in Kyiv Governorate (the family moved to Odessa between 1893 and 1895). The birthplace is marked by a memorial plaque. His father worked as an accountant at the Odessa branch of the Siberian Bank, located in the house of merchant Yakov Puritz at 11 Deribasovskaya Street (corner of Rishelevskaya). In 1913 he graduated from a technical school, after which he worked in a drafting office, as a telephone station technician, and as a turner at a military factory. After the Revolution he worked as an accountant, journalist, and later editor for humor magazines. He was a member of the Odessa Union of Poets. In 1923 he moved to Moscow and became a contributor to the newspaper Gudok. Ilf wrote humorous and satirical pieces, mainly feuilletons. In 1927, the creative partnership of Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov began with their joint work on the novel The Twelve Chairs (see Ilf and Petrov); Petrov also worked for Gudok. In 1928, Ilya Ilf was dismissed from the newspaper because of cuts in the satirical department, and Yev