Yuri Malkovskiy

A former aristocrat Ippolit Vorobyaninov leads a miserable life in Soviet Russia. His mother-in-law reveals a secret to him - she hid family diamonds in one of the twelve chairs they once had. Vorobyaninov in cooperation with a young con artist Ostap Bender start a long search for the diamonds.

A group of drunken young people severely beat the couple in love. Subsequently, Aleksandr Shchetinin died in the hospital after receiving injuries from beatings. The court, chaired by Judge Khromova, is to pronounce the death sentence on one of the four participants in the fight, who committed the fatal blow that led to death.

The action takes place in Odessa in the 1970s. Rosa, an Odessa woman, a mother and the head of the household, says goodbye to the Courtyard where her entire life unfolded, because her sons have decided to emigrate to Israel and take the elderly parents — her mother and father — with them. A staunch patriot and war veteran, Semen Margolin is ready to curse his children for such a betrayal, but with the help of his mother Rosa, he is somehow persuaded to make the move.

Based on the eponymous novel by A.I. Herzen.