Russian Beer
Russian Beer playing cards / “Russkoe pivo karty igral’nye” produced in 2006
A 36 card pack with three Jokers produced in 2006 in a limited edition of 1000 by the artist and publisher Aleksei Orleanskii. The Aces celebrate Russian beer, while the court cards are all holding beer - the Kings hold tankards, the Queens glasses, and the Jacks hold bottles. The three Jokers are characters from the advertising posters of the Russian Durdin beer brewery which was founded in 1839.
“In life there is always a place for beer”
Above: Russian Beer playing cards / “Russkoe pivo karty igral’nye” produced in 2006. 36 cards + 3 jokers. The pip cards depict a silhouette of a man pouring beer from a jug, and at the bottom of each card there is a pithy saying/phrase in Russian, e.g. “In life there is always a place for beer”; “A cold beer warms the soul”.
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.
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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