Peterhof

Peterhof souvenir deck manufactured by the St Petersburg Colour Printing Plant (Kombinat Tsvetnoi Pechati) in 1999 with court cards depicting representatives of the Russian Romanov dynasty who were rulers from 1613 until the Russian Revolution of February 1917. The designs were originally published by Piatnik as “Romanow (nr. 1141)” in 1997. Peterhof Palace was founded at the beginning of the 18th century and became the Russian Tsars’ summer residence during the 18th-19th centuries. It contains the world’s largest system of fountains and water cascades.

Each court card portrays a Tsar or Tsarina whose life and fate was associated with the Palace. The three named Jokers are Aleksandr Menshikov (statesman and friend of Tsar Peter the Great), Grigorii Rasputin (mystic and self-proclaimed holy man who befriended the family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia), and Ernst Johann von Biron (briefly regent of the Russian Empire in 1740).