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Russian Emperors

Published July 31, 2022 Updated August 02, 2022

Russian Emperors playing cards / “Rossiiskie imperatory karty igral’nye” produced and illustrated by Aleksei Orleanskii, 2006.

2006 Russia Orleansky

The court cards depict the Tsars and Empresses, each named in both English and Cyrillic, with dates of birth/death and the period of their reign. The Jokers depict: Ivan Balakirev (1699–1763, a court jester to Peter the Great); Iakov Turgenev (also a court jester to Peter the Great); and Andrei Besiashchii (1667-1732, also known as Andrei Apraksin)

Russian Emperors playing cards  / “Rossiiskie imperatory karty igral’nye” produced and illustrated by Aleksei Orleanskii, 2006 Russian Emperors playing cards  / “Rossiiskie imperatory karty igral’nye” produced and illustrated by Aleksei Orleanskii, 2006 Russian Emperors playing cards  / “Rossiiskie imperatory karty igral’nye” produced and illustrated by Aleksei Orleanskii, 2006

Above: Russian Emperors playing cards / “Rossiiskie imperatory karty igral’nye” produced and illustrated by Aleksei Orleanskii, 2006. 36 cards + 3 jokers, limited run of 1000.

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By Peter Burnett

Member since July 27, 2022

I graduated in Russian and East European Studies from Birmingham University in 1969. It was as an undergraduate in Moscow in 1968 that I stumbled upon my first 3 packs of “unusual” playing cards which fired my curiosity and thence my life-long interest. I began researching and collecting cards in the early 1970s, since when I’ve acquired over 3,330 packs of non-standard cards, mainly from North America, UK and Western Europe, and of course from Russia and the former communist countries.

Russian Playing Cards

Following my retirement from the Bodleian Library in Dec. 2007 I took up a new role as Head of Library Development at the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP) to support library development in low-income countries. This work necessitated regular training visits to many sub-Saharan African countries and also further afield, to Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh – all of which provided rich opportunities to further expand my playing card collection.

Since 2019 I’ve been working part-time in the Bodleian Library where I’ve been cataloguing the bequest of the late Donald Welsh, founder of the English Playing Card Society.

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