Playing cards Imperial Peterhof

On the card figures - representatives of the Romanov dynasty from Peter I, who personally declared himself emperor, and until the last emperor Nicholas II. Almost all of the people depicted are big fans of playing cards. So Catherine II was not indifferent to the card game, which she officially banned, but she herself loved to play cards very much. Her grandson Alexander I in 1819 established a card monopoly in Russia, shortly before that he had established the Imperial Card Factory for the production of playing cards in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.
Both Nicholas I and Nicholas II were fond of playing cards. The first spent evenings playing in the circle of dignitaries close to him, the second - in the family circle. Peter I played cards in his youth, but in adulthood he "did not tolerate a card game, since his mental abilities did not allow him to count on victory." Of all the Romanovs, only Paul I did not play cards. Not all of the representatives of the Romanov dynasty, who were fond of card games, fit into the deck. There was no place in it for such lovers of the game as Anna Ioannovna, Elizabeth Petrovna, Peter III, Alexander III, as well as court dignitaries and avid gamblers Menshikov, Biron or Chancellor Bezborodka. But some close associates of Peter I, members of the so-called. "joke society", the most famous of them is the jester Balakirev. These characters are depicted on jokers.
On aces and cards from deuce to tens - silhouettes of architectural monuments of Peterhof - palaces, sculpture, fountains. Peterhof was the permanent summer residence of the Romanov family for two centuries.

The deck was prepared for publication in 2005. The idea to use an ornament based on the drawing of Peter I on the shirts of cards belonged to the director of the Peterhof State Museum Reserve V.V. Znamenov (1936-2020).