At the intersection of Ulitsa Oktyabrskaya and Ulitsa Chernyshevskogo is a sculpture featuring 12 chairs in recognition of the city's connection with the popular Soviet book and film Twelve Chairs.  In the book the main character Ostap Bender tricks the citizens of Vasyuki into believing their small provincial town can become the chess capital of the world.  Many believe that the prototype of Vasyuki was Kozmodemyansk as Ilya Ilf, one of the authors, is known to have visited the city in 1925.