Ilya Ilf was born Ilya Arnoldovich Fayzilberg on October 15, 1897, in Odessa, Russian Empire (now Odesa, Ukraine). His father, named Arnold Fayzilberg, was a clerk at a bank. In 1913, he graduated from a Technical School. He worked as a clerk, a telephone technician, and had various industrial jobs in Odessa. After the Russian Revolution, he ...