...Her son-in-law, Ippolit Matwejewitch Worobjaninow, is a former nobleman and a dandy who is currently wasting away as a small town magistrate in charge of civil marriages. He eagerly takes up the quest to find the treasure. Meanwhile, over the years, the twelve chairs have been dispersed all over the country. However, Worobjaninow is not the only one in pursuit of the treasure. Hot on its trail are Ostap Bender, a clever and colorful conman, as well as Father Fjodor, a priest to whom the wealthy aristocrat has also confessed her secret. Thus begins a wild chase that ranges from North to South, West to East, across water and land, from the country to the city.

The young talented actress Vera Samarina, has an interesting job, fame, plans for the future and a loving husband Igor, a failed actor. She goes for the shooting, leaving her husband, an unemployed actor, in despair. By agreeing to become a racketeer, he does not even suspect an inevitable tragic end. While the young woman sorts out her emotional experiences on the set by the sea, her husband specializes in knocking out other people's debts and other not very legal and dangerous activities.

In the night, someone shoots an elderly couple in their sleep with a hunting rifle, leaving their twenty-year-old son, disabled and confined to a wheelchair, an orphan. The investigation reveals the life story of what seems at first glance to be an ordinary Soviet family. While still young, the couple lost their long-desired infant daughter. Later in life, the fate gives them a child, but he happens to be a boy. The mother's pathological desire to have a daughter becomes an obsession. The woman treats Sashenka as a girl, dresses him as a girl and buys him dolls. The father supports his wife in every way. This is how starts a dramatic and astonishing story of human vices and deviations.