Russian folk art playing cards

Published January 07, 2024 • Updated October 01, 2025

Russian folk art playing cards produced by Natalia Silva, USA, 2017.

This striking deck is inspired by traditional Russian wood painting style and national ornament – Khokhloma -- known for it's vivid flower patterns, red and gold colours over a black background. Motifs used in painting are mainly natural: grass, flowers, berries and birds. A limited edition was produced by Natalia Silva in March 2016 as a “collector’s edition” of 75 copies. Due its success a larger, limited edition of 1000 copies was produced via Kickstarter by Ms. Silva in 2017 and printed by the USPCC.

The 54 cards present folk instruments and dances, symbols and mythological characters, clothing accessories, flowers and the ubiquitous matryoshkas against a black background. with a traditional floral multi-coloured pattern on the reverse. The court cards have the Cyrillic abbreviations (T - Tuz, K - Karol’, D - Dama and B- Valet), and the suits are brightly coloured: spades and clubs – yellow; hearts and diamonds – red. The tuck box displays in Russian “Ogranichennoe izdanie” (limited edition).

Russian folk art playing cards produced by Natalia Silva, USA, 2017

Above: Russian folk art playing cards produced by Natalia Silva and printed by USPCC, USA, 2017.

See the box►

533 Articles

By Peter Burnett

United Kingdom • 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.