When did card games appear? History of playing cards. How were the rules of old card games developed?

Well known throughout the world, playing cards have found many uses. With their help, the future is predicted, a variety of people are entertained by them, they become participants in almost every magician or illusionist show. However, the past of the cards is so contradictory and vague that it is still unknown where exactly they appeared.

There are many scientific treatises that talk about the possible sources of their occurrence. But let's start with the fact that initially the cards looked completely different from how we are used to seeing them.

When there was no paper, they already existed

As you know, paper was invented in China around 105 AD. However, there have been various finds dating back to earlier years that may well be the ancestors of modern maps. Initially, images of animals, objects or weapons were applied to metal dies, pieces of leather, bark, bamboo or even bone tablets. However, it is too difficult to attribute such finds specifically to playing cards as such.

According to scientists' theories, playing cards originally appeared in China, and thanks to trade routes they came to India and Persia. There is also an opinion that the birthplace of cards is India, where round dies with images similar to ancient playing cards were found. There are quite a lot of other versions, but so far no one has been able to prove one specific one and find out for certain the real homeland of the cards.

The beauty of such entertainment initially was that the cards did not require a separate field, like checkers, chess or similar games. It is not surprising that interested traders took them home. However, the earliest finds still raise enough doubts about their connection with current playing cards.

Why is China considered the birthplace of cards?

China is responsible for many inventions, including various games - for example, dominoes or mahjong. However, it is currently considered the most obvious birthplace of modern playing cards. There are quite a few reasons for this conclusion.

First of all, this is confirmed due to the fact that the first mention in historical sources related to playing cards was in China, in 1294 AD.

Secondly, China was the birthplace of the printing press, which greatly simplified the production of playing cards. And this also takes into account the fact that China was the birthplace of paper.

Thirdly, the playing cards that were in China at that time have a huge number of similarities with modern cards. So, for example, they had a suit, which was designated by coins. In addition, they had an oblong shape, and the images on them were extremely similar to modern kings and ladies.

Where did the very first card suits come from?

It is noteworthy that if the ancient maps that were found in China already featured coins, they then underwent some changes. After the maps came to Egypt, they changed significantly, because there was a period of Mamluk rule. This was primarily due to the fact that their religion did not allow them to put images of people on maps. Thanks to this, the four suits turned into coins (already established in China), clubs, swords and cups.

Why sticks, you ask? Everything is quite simple. Images of everyday objects and surroundings that these people were interested in were drawn onto the maps. But it is known for certain that the Mamluks had a passion for a game similar to modern polo. Subsequently, when playing cards had already reached Europe, the clubs turned into clubs or maces.

A special detail that should be noted is that regardless of the number of cards in the deck itself, which varied from 12 to more than a hundred, there were exactly four suits. Both in Chinese maps and among the Mamluks, who helped the maps get to Europe.

How playing cards appeared in Europe

As soon as playing cards from Alexandria reached the south of Europe, their rapid spread began. It was so widespread and large-scale that such a fact was even given the name “Invasion of the Playing Cards.” And such a threatening name can be easily justified.

At that time, many different clashes, hostilities between countries and minor skirmishes took place in Europe. Due to their lightness, ease of transportation and small size, cards were very popular among soldiers. And it turns out that as the troops advanced, the maps also advanced. Cards also came to Great Britain with the onset of hostilities.

Quite a lot of documentary references to maps have been found throughout Europe. In 1377 - the first mention of the appearance of cards in Switzerland, in 1392 they were already ordered in gold for the king, and what can we say only about the number of bans on gambling, which were almost everywhere!

How different decks and suits of cards appeared

As soon as playing cards got into any new country, they immediately tried to remake them for themselves. Only the Tarot cards, which retained the division into the minor and major arcana, have not undergone too many changes. They were not so convenient for games as such. If we talk specifically about playing cards, then they changed extremely often.

It turns out that each nation tried to express in cards its own characteristics and national preferences. Thanks to this, the suits were constantly changing. However, each suit has a rather interesting evolution. Let's look at the most famous decks that currently exist.

Italian-Spanish deck

It was not in vain that we started with it, because it is extremely similar to the ancient Mamluk playing cards, in which the clubs were slightly modified.

• Swords (spades);
• Cups (hearts);
• Clubs (clubs);
• Coins (diamonds).

Existing to this day, when fully composed it should consist of 50 cards (including two jokers, 48 ​​without them). Number cards started with one and ended with nine. Next came the senior cards, which were designated page, knight (knight) and king. In some variants there was a reduced deck without eights, and there were also variants with an additional “Queen” card.

It is noteworthy that there were no numbers written on the cards of this deck, and there were no letter designations.

German deck

When this particular deck of cards was created, they wanted to make it as much as possible to show the enormous importance of agricultural crops in Germany.

• The swords turned into leaves that met the requirements of German culture and were conditionally similar in shape (peaks);
• Cups into hearts, since there was an association with the wine that filled these cups (worms);
• The clubs no longer became rough tree branches, but turned into acorns (clubs);
• The coins turned into bells, since they were also round in shape (tambourines).

Even later, when the French deck took over the whole world, its German variants had not two, but four suit colors. To preserve the pre-existing green (leaves) and yellow (bells) suits.

This deck has approximately the same number of cards as the Italo-Spanish one. What is also similar is that there were no ladies in it, but only kings or knights. This is easily explained by the fact that in the ruling class it was men who played the main role.

Swiss deck

Compared to the German one, it has undergone relatively minor changes. The suits of this deck are:

• Shields that became swords (spades);
• Roses, former hearts (worms);
• Acorns (clubs);
• Bells (tambourines).

French deck

It was she who became the most iconic. And the most popular among all other decks. Seeing modern suits, you see exactly a French deck.

In it, the suits turned into:

• Peaks;
• Worms;
• Clubs;
• Diamonds.

In the form in which we know them, they appeared when there was a need to simplify the production of cards. Suit symbols had to be created easily and by almost anyone in order to reduce their cost. And the suits were simplified to the very symbols that are now known throughout the world. But not only this became a surprisingly correct marketing move.

It was the French deck that introduced the designation of suits in two colors: red and black.

Such decisions made it the simplest to perform, memorable, universal, and, on top of that, it was more delicate in relation to women. It was in the French deck that the Queen was initially present as a permanent card. And its weight was undeniable.

Hello everybody.

Today I will tell you one of the many versions about how playing cards appeared in Russia. Many versions are a reflection of the eras in which the cards were born. And this version is one of the most interesting.

Modern playing cards are a multi-stage development of history, with its ups and downs, the development of a history that is constantly evolving, and they are looking for new ways of perfection.

This fact alone is worth being proud of.
One of the mysteries remains that no one still knows the exact date, year of origin of playing cards, and the place of their invention remains a mystery to this day.

Birthplace of cards

Of course, you have probably read many theories about this or that place and date of birth. One ancient Chinese dictionary by Ching Tsze Tung (this dictionary became popular in 1678 in Europe) says that playing cards were invented in 1120 in China, but in 1132 they became widespread in China.

But let's look today at several options for the appearance of cards, in addition to the Chinese version, we will also consider the Indian version and the Egyptian version.
With all the interest in cards, the Japanese and Chinese decks are unusual for us, which sometimes surprises and misleads our minds.

The appearance, the nature of the game, which is similar to dominoes - all this arouses interest. However, there is information that in China in the 8th century, sticks were used for games, and then strips of paper with various symbols.

These distant ancestors of cards were also used as or instead of money, which is why there were only three suits: a coin, two coins and many coins.

After some time, the Japanese acquired a fourth suit, and the meaning of the suits also changed, now these suits symbolized the seasons, and the number of cards (52 pieces) in the deck meant the number of weeks in the year.

There is also another theory about the origin of playing cards. Before the appearance of paper cards, which we are all familiar with, the Japanese played with special tablets that resembled cards carved from ivory or wood with cut-out figures.

And in Medieval Japan, the founders of playing cards were mussel shells; such cards were one of the most amazing.

Using shell playing cards, they played solitaire on the table, and searched for shells with the same designs in the laid out shells. At this rate, maps became famous both in India and Egypt in the 13th century.

One of the most interesting points was that in India, the pictures of playing cards depicted a four-armed Shiva, who had a cup, a sword, a coin and a staff in his hands.

After such images of the four-armed Shiva in India, it became believed that these objects in the hands of Shiva denoted classes and this served as the beginning of modern card suits.
But one of the most popular versions of the origin of playing cards is Egyptian. This version is promoted by modern occultists.

They claim that in ancient times, the priests of Egypt wrote down all the wisdom and mysteries of the world on 78 tablets of gold, and these tablets were depicted in the form of symbols of playing cards.

The tablets were divided into parts: 1. “Minor Arcana” - 56 pieces (later they became ordinary playing cards); 2. “Major Arcana” - 22 pieces, were considered mysterious cards of the Tarot deck, and were used exclusively for fortune telling.
This version was launched to the masses in 1785 by the French occultist Etteil, and numerous of his successors not only supported and continued, but also created their own system for interpreting Tarot cards.

The name Tarot supposedly originates from the Egyptian word “ta rosh”, which means “the path of the king”, and they were brought to Europe, again allegedly, by either Arabs or gypsies, who, by the way, were often previously considered to have come from Egypt, and maybe today they think so.
The only thing I can tell you is that not a single evidence of such an early appearance of Tarot cards has been found, not a single scientist has been able to prove it.

The appearance of maps in Europe

There are several versions about the appearance of maps in Europe. One version is that the appearance of maps is associated with the appearance of gypsies in Europe in the 15th century.

And another version reveals to us an interesting fact, that a little-known painter invented cards for the entertainment of the insane King of France Charles VI (1368-1422), and in history he is known to everyone as Charles the Mad. Allegedly, with the advent of such entertainment for the king, he calmed down and his despotic crazy character was distracted.

The opinion that the invention of cards for Charles VI the Mad as entertainment and joy is just another legend. The game on handles with images of numbers on them was played in Ancient Greece already in those days, and in India - these were shells or ivory plates; and in China, playing cards are similar to our modern cards, known since the 12th century.
In 1379, the first documentary evidence of the appearance of cards was published. In the chronicle of one of the cities in Italy, a note appeared: “A card game has been introduced, which came from the country of the Saracens and is called by them “naib.”
Based on the name of this game “naib”, one can assume that this game was invented by the military, or had a military character, because "naib" means "captain", "chief".

Arabic cards

Arabic cards had one feature that distinguished them from other playing cards: only numbers were depicted on these cards, the depiction of human figures was prohibited, this was the law of Mohammed. Therefore, the French rather did not invent maps, and only transformed existing ones with all kinds of drawings.

The suits of card decks have always been varied. In some of the earliest Italian decks, the suits, for example, bore the names: “swords”, “cups”, “wands”, “denarii” (coins).

It was very similar to the Indian theme: clergy, nobility and merchant class, and the rod itself symbolized the royal power that stood before us all.
But the French came up with their own version of the suits and instead of swords they had “spades”, cups became “hearts”, denarii turned into “diamonds”, and the wands were called “crosses” or “clubs” “clubs” means “clover leaf” in French ).

Variety of titles

These names, in different languages, now sound differently, for example: England and Germany are “shovels”, “diamonds”, “hearts” and “bludgeons”, Italy are “spears”, “hearts”, “flowers” ​​and "bells" and "leaves". And in Russia the word “worms” comes from the word “chervonny”, i.e. red, now it’s clear why hearts originally belonged to the red suits.

Cards, cards, cards.. Oh that word, many people’s eyes lit up at this word, excitement took over, and the mind could no longer cope. Cards quickly spread throughout many European countries.

The government, observing all this, tried to tame the excitement in people by taking measures and banning card games, but... all attempts turn out to be insignificant. Along with the taming of gambling, more and more new gambling card games appeared.

In Germany, craft workshops began to appear that were engaged in the production of cards, and manufacturing methods also improved.
In France in the 15th century, card suits were established that still exist today. It is believed that the suit of each card speaks about the four most important objects of knightly use: clubs - a sword, hearts - a shield, spades - spears, diamonds - a banner and coat of arms.

What is encrypted in the cards?

There is a mystical connection in cards with something unearthly and at the same time familiar to all of us, for example, 52 cards are the number of weeks in a year; 4 suits – correspond to the seasons; there are 13 cards in each suit, the same number of weeks in each season; if you add up all the card values, the total will be 364 - the same as the number of days in a year without one. The amazing is nearby.
The first card games were very intricate, because the game involved not only 56 standard cards, but also 22 “Major Arcana” cards, and another 20 cards that were trump cards named after the elements and signs of the Zodiac.

From country to country, the names of these cards were confused and so confused that it became simply impossible to play. And the uniqueness of these cards was that they were hand-painted and the price for them was quite high, and that is why only rich people could purchase them.

Radical changes occurred in the 16th century, when almost all the pictures disappeared, leaving only the four “high suits” and the joker “joker”. An interesting fact is that all the images on the cards were either real or legendary heroes.

We continue to investigate how playing cards appeared.

Who played the role of kings?

For example, four kings, the most amazing people of antiquity: Carth the Great (hearts), Julius Caesar (diamonds), the biblical king David (spades), Alexander the Great (clubs). There was no unanimity regarding the queens on the cards - the queen of hearts was either Judith, Dido, or Helen of Troy.

The Queen of Spades personified the goddess of war - Athena, Minerva, Joan of Arc. In the role of the femme fatale, the queen of spades, after many disagreements, they began to portray the biblical Rachel; she, like no one else, was better suited for the role of “queen of money”, because she robbed her own father.

The Queen of Clubs acted as the virtuous Lucretia, gradually turning into Argina - symbolizing vanity and vanity.
One of the most difficult card figures is the jack, which in English means squire.

At first, the word “jack” meant servants and even jesters, but then it established itself in a different meaning. The French knight La Hire, whose nickname was Satan (hearts), the heroes of the epic Ogier the Dane (spade), Roland (tambourine) and Lancelot the Lake (clubs).

The first maps were very expensive due to the fact that they were drawn by hand; machines for their production did not yet exist. The length of the cards at that time was 22 cm, this was a very inconvenient size, but it was convenient for card drawers.

Atlas maps

In our life, where we are accustomed to everything that is familiar to us from childhood, it seems ordinary. Here are the atlas maps, they are familiar and familiar to us; looking at other maps, they may seem somehow ridiculous to us.

For decades, atlas maps have been distributed all over the world and that is why they have earned our trust.

They are so familiar to us, like fairy tales, like myths and epics. But maps appeared in Russia only in the middle of the 19th century.

Some of the highest specialists, Academician Adolf Iosifovich Charlemagne (Bode-Charlemagne) and Alexander Egorovich Beideman, dealt with issues of artistic design.

These people made an era with their talent, your skill, after an era, the card images designed by these people are the standard and wonderful card graphics. At this time, these masterpieces adorn the collection of the State Russian Museum and the Peterhof Card Museum. We continue to investigate how playing cards appeared.

Modernity

Over time, card games were divided into two components: commercial (purely mathematical calculations) and gambling (chance). The first option (vint, whist, preference, bridge, poker) took root among educated people who loved to play, while the second direction (sec, “point”, shtoss and hundreds of others, right down to the harmless “throwing fool”) reigned among the common people.

The West progressed towards cards, logic and thinking games being included in children's school curriculum. However, what to judge and reason, play, think, win. My story about how playing cards appeared is over.

I advise you to learn:

Good luck with your story, be lucky.

Today, eight out of every ten homes in the UK play card games, but in the rest, if you look hard enough, you can find a deck of cards. Playing cards is so familiar to most of us that it even seems to us that they have always existed.

Perhaps playing cards have been known since the creation of fine art by man. Their history goes back so far that no one can say exactly when and where they first appeared.

Who invented playing cards?

For a long time it was believed that playing cards were invented by the Chinese, since previously paper money and playing cards in China were almost identical. We know that playing cards existed in China a thousand years ago! But at present it is not clear who should give priority to the invention of maps: the Chinese, Egyptians, Arabs or Indians.

Since their inception, cards have become one of the ways to predict fate. It is possible that they were used for this purpose before they were used for various gambling games. In the Middle Ages, sorcerers used playing cards to predict the future.

When did playing cards come to Europe? Some believe that the crusaders brought them from their campaigns. Others say that through the Saracens they came to Spain or Italy, others say that the gypsies brought them to Eastern Europe. There is no doubt, however, that playing cards have been known in Europe since the 13th century.

Originally there were many different types of playing cards. For example, figured cards were common (there were 22 of them in the deck, and there were no numbers among them) and digital cards (there were 56 cards in this deck - and not a single picture). The French were the first to create a deck of 52 cards. They used digital cards and kept the king, queen, and jack from the face cards. This 52-card deck was adopted by the British.

The earliest cards were drawn by hand, but with the development of wood carving, playing cards became cheaper and spread very quickly among the common people.

The invention of this entertainment, an inexhaustible source of joys and sorrows, is attributed to the cunning Egyptians, the fatalistic Indians, and the cheerful Greeks in the person of Palamedes. However, during excavations, if gambling “tools” were found, it was mainly in the form of hexagonal-shaped dice-cubes.

It is generally accepted that the first maps appeared later, in the 12th century in China. Masters of filling their leisure time, the court aristocrats, initially discovered aesthetic fun in drawing small pictures with allegorical signs of animals, birds and plants. Then - a convenient way of transmitting secret information in the matter of palace and love affairs. And later - the possibility of risky games with the all-powerful Fatum.

But the Egyptian version of the origin of the cards, replicated by modern occultists, is much more popular. They claimed that in ancient times, Egyptian priests wrote down all the wisdom of the world on 78 golden tablets, which were also depicted in the symbolic form of cards. 56 of them - the “Minor Arcana” - became ordinary playing cards, and the remaining 22 “Major Arcana” became part of the mysterious Tarot deck used for fortune telling. This version was first published in 1785 by the French occultist Etteila, and his successors, the French Eliphas Levi and Dr. Papus and the English Mathers and Crowley, created their own systems for interpreting Tarot cards. This name supposedly comes from the Egyptian “ta rosh” (“the path of kings”), and the maps themselves were brought to Europe either by Arabs or gypsies, who were often considered to have come from Egypt.

True, scientists were unable to find any evidence of such an early existence of the Tarot deck.

According to the third version (European version), ordinary maps appeared on the European continent no later than the 14th century. Back in 1367, card games were banned in the city of Bern, and ten years later, a shocked papal envoy watched in horror as the monks enthusiastically played cards near the walls of their monastery. In 1392, Jacquemin Gringonner, the jester of the mentally ill French King Charles VI, drew a deck of cards to amuse his master. The deck of that time differed from the current one in one detail: it had only 32 cards. There were four ladies missing, whose presence seemed unnecessary at the time. Only in the next century did Italian artists begin to depict Madonnas not only in paintings, but also on maps.

Just at this time, Europe began to carry out large military expeditions to the East - the Crusades (1096-1270), and for the first time Europeans discovered a new and already highly developed culture. Returning home, the crusaders did not forget to take with them the exotic things that amazed them: light porcelain, the finest silk, painted fans and, of course, charming miniatures on thick rice paper for tricks and fortune telling.

However, a lot of time passed before card games became widespread. In any case, the first mention in the chronicles of the Saracen game “naib” (Arabic “naib” - cards) dates back to the last quarter of the 14th century. It is characteristic that, in full accordance with the Arabic sound, the word “cards” in Italian is “naibi”; in Spanish "naipes"; in Portuguese “naipe” (this was associated with lively trade with Arab countries and close contact with local merchants, known for their passion to pay for goods “by chance,” i.e., according to the principle of the unforgettable Nozdryov).

In other European countries, another cognate word has been firmly established: in France - “carte”, in Germany - “Karten, SpielKarten”, in Denmark - “Kort, SpelKort”, in Holland - “Kaarten, SpeelKarten”, in England - “card” "

At the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries, maps were made directly by the artist and to individual orders. Naturally, its productivity was low, and only with the invention of engraving did map printing take on a large scale.

Three main types of playing cards are stacked at the same time: Italian, French and German. All of them had differences both in suits and in the figures themselves.

The Italian type of cards arose with the invention of the game "tarok". These maps, made as copper engravings, were very unique. In a normal, or “Venetian” tarok, the deck consisted of 78 cards, the suits were divided into cups, denarii, swords and clubs. Each suit contained 14 cards: king, queen, knight, jack, point cards from ten to six, ace of swords, point cards from five to two. The remaining 21 cards, starting from the Figur and ending with the card called Light, were trump cards, or Triumphs. Finally, there was another card called the Fool (by the way, a prototype of the future Joker). In Florence, 98 cards were issued, where graces, elements and 12 constellations were added to the usual Triumphs.

There is an assumption that a deck is not a random collection of cards. 52 cards are the number of weeks in a year, four suits are the four seasons. Green suit is a symbol of energy and vitality, spring, west, water. In medieval cards, the sign of the suit was depicted using a rod, staff, or stick with green leaves, which were simplified to black spades when printing cards. The red color symbolized beauty, north, spirituality. Cups, bowls, hearts, and books were depicted on the card of this suit. The yellow suit is a symbol of intelligence, fire, south, and business success. The playing card depicted a coin, a rhombus, a lit torch, the sun, fire, and a golden bell. Blue suit is a symbol of simplicity and decency. The sign of this suit was an acorn, crossed swords, swords.

Cards at that time were 22 centimeters long, which made them extremely inconvenient to play.

There was no uniformity in card suits. In early Italian decks they were called "swords", "cups", "denarii" (coins) and "wands". It seems, as in India, to be associated with classes: the nobility, clergy and merchant class, while the rod symbolized the royal power that stood over them. In the French version, swords became “spades”, cups became “hearts”, denarii became “diamonds”, and “wands” became “crosses” or “clubs” (the latter word means “clover leaf” in French). . These names still sound different in different languages; for example, in England and Germany these are “shovels”, “hearts”, “diamonds” and “bludgeons”, and in Italy they are “spears”, “hearts”, “squares” and “flowers”. On German cards you can still find the old names of the suits: “acorns”, “hearts”, “bells” and “leaves”. As for the Russian word “hearts,” it comes from the word “chervonny” (“red”): it is clear that “hearts” originally referred to the red suit.

Mamluk maps. Ten of Cups, Three of Cups, First Advisor of Cups, Second Advisor of Cups

The Hofämterspiel deck reflects the political situation in Central Europe in the mid-15th century. Instead of suits, the coats of arms of the four most influential kingdoms of that time were taken: France, Germany, Bohemia and Hungary. The single-headed eagle represents the "regnum teutonicum" kingdom of Germany (as opposed to the double-headed eagle representing the Holy Roman Empire).

Read more about her HERE.

Early card games were quite complex, because in addition to 56 standard cards, they used 22 “Major Arcana” plus another 20 trump cards, named after the signs of the Zodiac and the elements. In different countries these cards were called differently and the rules were so confused that it became simply impossible to play. In addition, the cards were hand-colored and were so expensive that only the rich could purchase them. In the 16th century, the cards were radically simplified - almost all the pictures disappeared from them, with the exception of the four “high suits” and the jester (joker).

Cards of the Italian type appeared in France at the end of the 14th century, and already under Charles VII (1403-1461) cards with their own national suits appeared: heart, sickle of the moon, trefoil and spade. And at the end of the 15th century, the type of suits that are still used today was finally established in French cards: hearts (coeur), diamonds (carreau), clubs (trefle) and spades (pique). Since this time, French cards have acquired a stable type, which is characterized by the following figures: David - king of spades, Alexander - king of clubs, Caesar - king of diamonds, Charles - king of hearts, Pallas - queen of spades, Argina - queen of clubs, Rachel - queen of diamonds , Judith is the queen of hearts, Hector is the jack of diamonds, Ogier is the jack of spades, Lancelot is the jack of clubs and Lagir is the jack of hearts. This type of map reached the French Revolution of 1789-1894.

The new republican government entrusts not just anyone, but the most famous painter at that time, J.L. David (the author of the famous painting “The Death of Marat”) to create new drawings of cards. Instead of kings, David depicted geniuses of war, trade, peace and the arts, replaced ladies with allegories of freedom of religion, the press, marriage and trades, and instead of jacks he painted figures symbolizing the equality of fortunes, rights, duties and races. It was in France that forms of four colors originally appeared: ivy leaves, acorns, bells, hearts. It is a very plausible assumption that the French suits are symbols of knightly use: a lance is a spear, a club is a sword, a tambourine is a coat of arms or oriflamme (banner, standard), and hearts are a shield.

On these cards from the French "deck on feet" (1648), the images are labeled with their names.

It is also necessary to say that for many centuries maps were “single-headed,” i.e. the figures on them were depicted in full growth. The first maps without a “top” and “bottom”, “two-headed”, were produced by Italy at the end of the 17th century. At this time, these cards were not widely used. Then a similar attempt was made in Belgium, and at the beginning of the 19th century France began to produce such maps.

Traditional deck. Germany

Traditional deck. Switzerland

By the way, the tradition of magnificently decorating the ace of spades came from the fact that during the reign of King James I of England (1566-1625), a decree was issued according to which information about the manufacturer and its logo had to be printed on the ace of spades (since this card is the first in the deck). . A special stamp was placed on the same ace, indicating the payment of a special tax on cards.

In addition to these basic types of maps, so-called “thematic” maps were issued in various European countries. There were “pedagogical” decks that taught players geography, history or grammar. Illustration cards for the dramas of Shakespeare, Schiller, and Moliere enjoyed success. “Toys for adults” reflected heraldry, palmistry and even fashion. For example, in the middle of the last century, cards were printed in France on which the clothes of kings, queens and jacks represented the latest models of the season...

By the 13th century, maps were already known and popular throughout Europe. From this moment on, the history of the development of cards becomes clearer, but rather monotonous. In the Middle Ages, both fortune telling and gambling were considered sinful. In addition, cards have become the most popular game during the working day - a terrible sin, according to employers of all times. Therefore, from the middle of the 13th century, the history of the development of cards turns into the history of prohibitions associated with them.

For example, in France in the 17th century, householders in whose apartments played gambling card games paid a fine, were deprived of their civil rights and were expelled from the city. Card debts were not recognized by law, and parents could recover a large sum from the person who won money from their child. After the French Revolution, indirect taxes on the game were abolished, which stimulated its development. The “pictures” themselves also changed - since the kings were in disgrace, it was customary to draw geniuses instead, ladies now symbolized virtues - in other words, a new social structure came to card symbolism. True, already in 1813, jacks, queens and kings returned to the cards. The indirect tax on game cards was only abolished in France in 1945.

Maps appeared in Russia at the beginning of the 17th century. The largest Russian critic and art historian V.V. Stasov believed that the cards came to the Slavic peoples from the Germans, without denying, however, that Poland played the role of the main mediator in this matter. But no matter how playing cards got into Little Russia or Muscovy, they spread extremely quickly. Of the legislative monuments, the Code of 1649 is the first to mention maps and their undeniable harmfulness to society. For more than a century, card games were persecuted by law in Russia, and players caught in the act were subjected to various punishments, until in 1761 it was established that games were divided into prohibited - gambling and permitted - commercial.

A decree of 1696 under Peter I ordered that everyone suspected of wanting to play cards be searched, “... and anyone whose cards are taken out should be beaten with a whip.” These punitive sanctions and similar ones that followed were due to the costs associated with the spread of gambling card games. Along with them, there were the so-called commercial card games, as well as the use of cards for performing tricks and playing solitaire.

The development of “innocent” forms of using cards was facilitated by Elizabeth Petrovna’s decree of 1761 dividing the use of cards into what was prohibited for gambling and what was permitted for commercial games. The route of penetration of cards into Russia is not entirely clear. Most likely, they became widespread in connection with the Polish-Swedish intervention during the Time of Troubles at the beginning of the 18th century.

Card games, which found a warm welcome in boyar houses and palace chambers, were certainly prohibited for the common people. In 1648, shortly after the accession of Alexei Mikhailovich, a royal decree was issued aimed at eradicating harmful customs and beliefs that still persisted among the urban and especially rural populations. The decree listed in detail numerous sins that required immediate eradication:

“...Many people, male and female, come together at the dawns, and in the night they cast spells, from the first sunrise they watch the days of the moon, and during a loud crash (in a thunderstorm) on rivers and lakes they buy, hope for their health from this, and wash themselves with silver, and bears lead, and dogs dance, and cards, and chess, and play with ankles, and disorderly jumping and splashing, and sing demonic songs; and on Holy Week, wives and girls jump on boards (on swings), and on the Nativity of Christ and before the Epiphany, many people, male and female, come together in a demonic host due to demonic charm, many demonic actions are played in all sorts of demonic games ... ".

It should be noted that along with gambling card games, such completely innocent fun as riding on a swing was also prohibited!

The decree of 1648 introduced a whole range of measures to combat card games and other “disorders”. It was ordered to be read out “many times” at auctions, lists from it “word for word” were sent to the largest villages and volosts, so that “this strong order of ours would be known to all people” and no one could then excuse themselves by ignorance of it.

Buffoon clothes, hari and masks, musical instruments, chessboards and decks of cards were ordered to be taken away and burned, and in relation to people found in violation of the decree, the governors were ordered “where such outrage appears, or who will say such outrage against whom, and you will they ordered to beat the batogs; and which people will not give up on such outrages, but will take out such Bogomerian card games and others, and you would order those disobedient ones to be beaten by batogs; and those people who do not give up on this, but show up in such guilt for the third and fourth time, and those, according to our decree, were ordered to be exiled to the Ukrainian (i.e., border) cities for disgrace.” And the governors themselves, so that they would not skimp on the implementation of the decree, were given a strict instruction: “But you will not act according to this decree of ours, and you will be in great disgrace from us (Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich).”

It must be assumed that initially the decree was carried out with all its inherent harshness, and more than one gambler had his back stripped with whips or sticks at the auction. But according to the saying “the cruelty of laws in Rus' is mitigated by the possibility of their non-execution,” the effect of this decree gradually faded away - mainly due to the physical impossibility of its implementation.

The next and very noticeable blow to playing cards was dealt the following year, 1649. The compilers of the famous “Code” of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich classified card playing and its consequences as crimes of extreme criminality, cruelly punishable by injury and death. In the 1649 edition of the Code, an article related to the “card game” is placed in the chapter “on robbery and Tatin affairs.”

“And who are thieves,” it is said in this article, “in Moscow and in the cities they steal, play cards and grains, and, losing, steal, walking along the streets, cutting people, tearing off hats and robbing ...”, then such should have been, after interrogation with torture, “make the decree (sentence) the same as written above about tatekh (robbers), that is, put in prison, confiscate property, beat with a whip, cut off ears (in the subsequent edition of the Code - fingers and hands) and execute by death "

The classification of card games as a serious crime had a great impact on the trading of playing cards. The surviving customs books show that after 1649 the import of cards, for example, to Veliky Ustyug, was halved compared to previous years, and after 1652 it stopped altogether. But has the card game stopped?

Special personalized royal decrees of 1668 and 1670 introduced a special regime in the Kremlin: people of various ranks - from the steward and below - were strictly forbidden to enter the Kremlin on horseback, to gamble during the sovereign's appearances in cathedral churches; when the tsar appeared, they were ordered to stand without "peaceful and serene" hats.

Significant government expenditures on military operations required a constant search for new sources of income. An interesting document has been preserved dating back to the end of the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich and indicating that among the Moscow administration, probably convinced of the ineradicability of the card game, a happy idea arose to turn it into a source of state income. The Moscow government has repeatedly acted this way ingeniously before, replacing the brutal persecution of the use of vodka and tobacco with a monopoly state-owned trade in these goods, to a greater increase in the treasury.

The mentioned document is a charter given to the Turin governor Alexei Beklemishev in Siberia in 1675. It turned out that from Tobolsk to Moscow before that “voivode Pyotr Godunov and clerk Mikhailo Postnikov wrote that they (it is unknown on what basis) farmed out grain and cards in Tobolsk,” in other words, they allowed the opening of gambling houses at the expense of the treasury and under its cover Houses. (Let us note in parentheses that along with the cards, the enterprising governor also farmed out “husbandless wives for fornication” - and all for the benefit of the treasury!)

Many other cities of the “Tobolsk category” wanted to follow the seductive initiative of Godunov and Postnikov. Voivodes from Verkhoturye and Surgut wrote, “that grain and cards should be farmed out to them for the same reason.” The great sovereign pointed out these simple-minded writings: in Tobolsk and other cities, “set aside the grain and cards and pay off the grain and cards from the salary.” The letter ordered the governor of the Turin fort, Beklemishev, to do the same, even if, following the example of Tobolsk and according to Godunov’s “unsubscribes,” he had already farmed out the grain and cards. Knowing the customs of local administrators, who easily found loopholes in decrees, the tsar’s letter especially indicated: “the tax farmer himself, he will suddenly be sent from Tobolsk, and not the Turin tenant, and he will be expelled from Turinsk, and henceforth a strong order will be made.”

The persecution of card games was not limited to prohibitory decrees. In 1672, by order of Alexei Mikhailovich, Lutheran pastor Johann Gottfried Gregory built a new theater church in Preobrazhenskoye, and in November the first performance was given before the Tsar - the comedy “Artxer's Action”. This was followed by new productions of a comedic and moralizing nature. The play “The History or Action of the Gospel Parable of the Prodigal Son,” composed by Simeon of Polotsk, became famous. This production is remarkable in that a kind of theatrical “programme” was published for it, in which scenes from the action were shown in the drawings, accompanied by explanations. According to the plot, the prodigal son, having received part of the estate from his father’s hands, leaves home and begins a wild life. He hires many servants, plays with grain and cards, gets involved with mistresses and, finally, squanders all his estate.

In one of the pictures of this “program” the prodigal son is shown playing cards and grains at a table, surrounded by players. This is the earliest depiction of a card game in Russia.

After the death of Alexei Mikhailovich in 1676, the persecution against gamblers softened significantly. In the royal decrees sent to localities, there was no longer the previous intimidation of players with injuries and executions for the very fact of playing cards; the whole threat is limited to a vague expression - “the order to repair strong.” The import of playing cards into Russia resumed and even increased significantly; 17,136 decks of them were brought to Veliky Ustyug alone in 1676-1680.

Soon after the permission of card games, Russia began its own production of playing cards. Already in 1765, the government of Catherine II established a tax on both imported playing cards and domestically produced cards, and the duty on foreign cards was twice as high. The printing of playing cards in Russia was farmed out, i.e. was in private hands and brought decent incomes to tax farmers, who sold an average of about one million decks a year. The money received as a result of taxes went to the benefit of Orphanages. And on the lands of the family estate of the Vyazemsky princes (P.A. Vyazemsky - one of the descendants of this ancient family - was a close friend of A.S. Pushkin), near the village of Aleksandrovo near St. Petersburg, Abbot Ossovsky, having received financial assistance from the government, built in 1798 year of the building of the Alexander Manufactory, which at the beginning of the 19th century became one of the largest enterprises in Russia. After a year of work, the manufactory was transferred to the treasury and was donated by Paul I to the Orphanage. In 1817, the manager of the manufactory A.Ya. Wilson proposed to the Board of Trustees to open a card factory at the manufactory. A note was drawn up, which was approved by Alexander I on October 12, 1817. The government was going to make huge profits, because a factory with a monopoly on the production of cards eliminated any outside competition. The decision not to give farm-outs, which expired in 1819, and the ban on the import of cards from abroad gave the treasury the opportunity to set any selling price for the cards.

In 1819, the factory produced its first products. During this year, 240 thousand decks were produced, which began to be sold throughout the Russian Empire (in 1820, card production increased to 1,380 thousand decks).

The new map sketches that were created did not have their own names. The concept of “satin” in the mid-19th century referred to the technology of their manufacture. Satin is a special type of smooth, glossy, shiny silk fabric. The paper on which they were printed was first rubbed with talcum powder on special rolling machines.

Let's return to our question about maps of the Pushkin era (“The Queen of Spades” was written in 1833). At this time and until 1860, on the back of the cards there was an image of a pelican feeding two children with the meat of its own heart. This allegorical sign was explained by the inscription: “Without sparing himself, he feeds the chicks.” The ironic phrase of one of the characters in N.S.’s story becomes clear. Leskova “Interesting Men”: “In order not to get bored, we sat down under the evening bells to “cut”, or, as they say, “to work for the benefit of the imperial orphanage.” But there was benefit. In 1835, a dozen decks cost 12 rubles, and were sold for 24. By the mid-50s, cards were produced three times more than those produced by farmers in 1818, while profits increased 4.5 times and amounted to 500 thousand rubles per year .

The maps of this time that interest us had the character of folk popular prints (professional artists had not yet been involved in the activities of the factory). They depicted funny German knights on horses the size of ponies, and large-headed clumsy ladies. For example, the Queen of Spades, if she wanted, could not frighten the player out of his mind, as happened with the impressionable Hermann. But the more obvious is the brilliant plan of Pushkin, who built the intrigue of the story on the external discrepancy between the funny card characters and their hidden fatal role.

The elegant drawings of cards without top and bottom that we are familiar with today were born thanks to the talent of academician of painting A.I. Charlemagne. In 1860, the factory's assortment expanded incredibly: cards of reduced sizes, solitaire, travel, children's, educational and fortune-telling cards began to be produced. But the more intensively production developed, the more “archaic” the drawings on the cards looked in the taste of folk primitiveness.

Being a historical painter and battle painter, A.I. Charlemagne tries himself in different areas of art. He makes illustrations for the works of A.S. Pushkin and other famous writers, makes sketches for the Imperial Porcelain Factory and, in addition, creates originals for playing cards. The merit of the artist lies in the fact that he, a talented draftsman and an expert on history, managed to find the right tone in solving the figurative structure of all the cards. Thanks to him, playing cards began to be distinguished by their unique style and integrity of image-symbols.

The factory's products were successfully demonstrated at the World Industrial Exhibitions in Paris in 1867 and 1878. In 1893, playing cards with Charlemagne's designs were presented at the Chicago World's Fair and received a bronze medal and an honorary diploma.

The new map sketches that were created did not have their own name and were not called Atlas. The very concept of “satin” in the mid-19th century did not refer to the design or special style of cards, but to the technology of their production. The word itself called satin then, and even now, it refers to a special type of smooth, glossy, shiny silk fabric. The paper from which cards were made back then was rough, with spots and stains, poorly glued, and often had different thicknesses in the sheet. To give the cards an improved appearance, the paper on which they were printed was first rubbed with talcum powder on special rolling machines, the operation of which was extremely harmful to health. Cards made on satin paper were not afraid of moisture, glided well when shuffled and were more expensive. In 1855, a dozen decks of satin cards cost 5 rubles 40 kopecks, on par with gold-edged cards made by hand for the imperial court.

A.I. Charlemagne. Solitaire playing cards.1862.

Charlemagne's drawings were used in the production of satin maps, first and second grade maps, as well as "Extra" maps already in the 30s of the 20th century. Gradually, all card products began to be produced on satin paper, and the name Satin was firmly attached to Charlemagne cards. In the “Price Courant of Retail Prices for 1935” of the State Card Monopoly, which was administered by the People’s Commissariat of Finance, a deck of “Satin” cards of 52-53 cards cost 6 rubles.

An interesting question - who was the prototype of the card characters? Russian card figures are anonymous, but the French cards that served as the basis for Charlemagne's work have their exact names, which were and are still written directly on the cards. Charlemagne, king of the Franks, led the suit of hearts; shepherd, singer and Hebrew king David - peak; Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great were given the suit of diamonds and clubs. The Queen of Hearts was the heroine of the biblical legend, Judith, and the most famous Queen of Spades in Russia was the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, Pallas Athena. The suit of diamonds has traditionally been associated with wealth; the symbol of the suit of diamonds itself, which we are accustomed to seeing in the form of a rhombus, is still called “diamond” - diamond.

Travel playing cards. 1870s Based on the originals by A.I. Charlemagne St. Petersburg. Card factory at the Imperial Orphanage. Collection of A.S. Perelman

In the 16th century, the lady of the tambourine was given the features of Rachel, the heroine of the biblical legend about the life of Jacob. According to legend, she was a greedy woman, which was quite consistent with her new card position. The image of the queen of clubs has become collective. They began to portray her as, in modern terms, a sex bomb, to which the nickname Argina, the regal one, firmly stuck. This word became so popular that all the queens, as well as the favorites and mistresses of the French kings, were called by this name behind their backs. In the form of jacks, Etienne de Vignelles, a knight from the time of Charles VII (hearts), the noble Ogier of Denmark (spades), one of the knights of the Round Table, Hector de Mare (diamonds), and finally Sir Lancelot himself, the senior knight of the Round Table (clubs), went down in history. During the time of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, Russian players also called cards by name. The poet V.I. Maikov in the poem “The Ombre Player” boldly throws Ogier, a jack of spades, onto the table.

From the end of the 18th century, a real card boom began, sweeping the entire Russian culture. For example, in his youth Derzhavin lived mainly on money won at cards, and Pushkin in police reports was listed not as a poet, but as “a well-known banker in Moscow.” Gambling Nekrasov and Dostoevsky often lost their last kopecks, but the cautious Turgenev preferred playing “for fun.” In the secular society of that time, especially provincial ones, almost the only entertainment was cards and the scandals associated with them.

A.E. Beideman Playing cards. Paper, watercolor, ink, pen

Gradually, card games were divided into commercial ones, based on clear mathematical calculations, and gambling games, where chance ruled everything. If the first (vint, whist, preference, bridge, poker) established themselves among educated people, then the second (seka, “point”, shtoss and hundreds of others, right down to the harmless “fool”) reigned supreme among the common people.

Traditional deck. Italy

In the West, “mental” card games that train logical thinking have even been included in the school curriculum. However, cards began to be used for completely non-intellectual activities. If they depict naked girls, there is no time for bridge. But this is a completely different game.

It must be said that over the centuries there have been many people who want to modernize card images, replacing them with animals, birds, and household items. For political purposes, decks were produced where Napoleon or the German Emperor Wilhelm acted as kings. And in the USSR, during the NEP years, there were attempts to depict workers with peasants on maps and even introduce new suits - “sickles”, “hammers” and “stars”. True, such amateur activity was quickly stopped, and maps were stopped printing for a long time as “attributes of bourgeois decay.”
So, what cards do we usually play now?

A.I. Charlemagne. Playing cards. Cardboard, ink, pen, watercolor, gouache. Collection of A.S. Perelman

1875 Atlas maps made according to the sketch of A. Charlemagne

Drawings of card figures with Charlemagne's monogram are made in the full size of a card deck. Created by order of a card factory in the 1860s - 1870s and still remain the most famous and popular card designs in Russia.

Very long time invention of playing cards was attributed to the 14th century French painter Jacqueline Grangonner, who allegedly first invented these small painted cardboard sheets. And he did this in order to amuse Charles VI with them in moments of enlightenment of His Majesty’s darkened mind.

This version was first refuted in the 18th century by two learned writers, Abbots de Longru and Reeve, who in their dissertations convincingly proved that cards and card games appeared long before the reign of this poor sovereign.

The first indisputable proof of this is the authentic act of the Cologne Cathedral, which prohibited card games for clergy.

This act appeared much earlier than the time when Grangonner handed over the maps he had drawn to the insanity-stricken monarch. The decent fee he received for these cards encouraged the artist to be creative, and he began to actively work on improving the design of the cards. He replaced some figures on the maps, and during the reign of Charles VII he made further changes to the images on the maps and came up with the names for the figures that they still bear.

So, at the whim of the artist David, the peak king, was the emblem of Charles VII, and the king of hearts was named Charlemagne. Queen Regina in Clubs lady depicted Mary, wife of Charles VII.

Pallas, the Queen of Spades, personified the Virgin of Orleans, Joan of Arc. Rachel, the queen of diamonds - the gentle Agnes Sorel, and the queen of hearts Judith - the light "moral" Isabella of Bavaria. Four jack(squires) meant four brave knights: Ogier and Lancelot under Charlemagne, Hector de Gallard and La Hire under Charles VII. And other names of the cards were designed by the artist in the taste of that time - a warlike allegory. Hearts were an emblem of courage, spades and diamonds represented weapons, clubs represented food supplies, fodder and ammunition. And finally, ace(ac) in its Latin meaning represented what has always been recognized as the main wealth of war - money.

The painter Grangonner, therefore, although not inventor of cards, but left to his compatriots and everyone a legacy, which greatly contributed and continues to contribute to the entertainment of people, and not only leisure, but also business, and led to a variety of activities in all levels of society.

The phenomenon of rapid distribution of maps throughout the world is unprecedented. Cards are played in all corners of the globe. Maps can be a topic of study for a philosopher and psychologist, a statistician and an economist, a moralist and a clergyman...

We must admit that origin of the cards is still covered in impenetrable darkness. Scientists realized it too late; time had managed to destroy monuments that could have shed light on the history of the appearance of maps. However, many learned people have devoted most of their lives to researching the history of playing cards.

But, despite all their efforts, this story is still replete with many blank spots, confused, and it is safe to say that it is unlikely that anyone will ever be able to find out when cards actually appeared and when for the first time The first players sat down at the gaming table.

What were playing cards made of?

In fact, to play a card game, it is not necessary to have the playing cards that we currently know: rectangular, oval, round or any other shape, made of thick cardboard. They can be made of wood, leather, ivory or even metal. Such maps can be seen in many museums around the world. In some countries, cards are still made from wood, in some places from plastic materials in the shape of dominoes, especially for card games such as Rams And Canasta. Thus, the material from which the cards are made may vary. The most suitable, however, turned out to be cards made from special paper. Moreover, such paper appeared almost simultaneously in many countries.

If paper was indeed invented in China back in 105 AD, then paper maps apparently appeared not much later.

There are many legends regarding the invention of cards. According to one of them, in prehistoric times a beautiful princess was kidnapped by a robber. While in captivity, she made cards from leather and taught her enslaver to play them. The robber was supposedly so enchanted by the game of cards that he released the princess as a sign of gratitude.

One Greek legend attributes the invention of cards to Palamedes, the son of the Euboean king Nauplias, a very smart and cunning man who managed, for example, to expose Odysseus himself. Odysseus wanted to stay away from the Greek war against Troy. When Palamedes found him in connection with this. Odysseus pretended to be crazy. And he did it this way: he also harnessed a donkey to the plow with his oxen, and began to sow the field not with grains, but to scatter salt into the furrows. However, Palamedes immediately saw through the deception. He returned to the palace, took Odysseus's son Telemachus from the cradle, brought him to the field and laid him in a furrow in front of a team of oxen and a donkey. Odysseus, of course, turned to the side, thereby giving himself away. This cunning of Palamedes was the basis for various inventions being attributed to him. He allegedly invented scales, letters, dice, some measures, and during the many years of the siege of Troy, playing cards. And this happened 1000 years BC!

There are researchers who name another person who allegedly invented cards. He is supposedly one of the seven wise men of ancient Greece, namely the philosopher Cylon, who wanted to help the poor forget about food. To do this, he invented cards that the poor began to play and during the game they completely forgot about hunger.

The list of legends and tales about the invention of cards can be continued, but it is clear that they are not the invention of one single person.

How were the rules of old card games developed?

It can be assumed that these were, first of all, combination games like the current games Rams and Canasta, i.e. games in which it was considered necessary to combine cards by pictures, colors, etc. as quickly as possible. This is evidenced by the fact that there were games that used cards not only with 3 and 4 images, but also with 5, 6 and more. In Korea, cards are played with the image of 8 figures: man, horse, antelope, rabbit, pheasant, crow, fish and star. And for each of these figures there are 10 different cards, i.e. the deck consists of 80 cards.

In the old days, the Chinese even played on devalued banknotes. Since there were few coins, and long travel with a large amount of money was dangerous, already in the 7th century the state allowed the so-called “flying money”. For the wasteful life of their courts, the rulers needed more and more money and ordered to print whole heaps of it. Money depreciated at a catastrophic rate, and it got to the point where in the 9th century it lost all value. Old banknotes were exchanged for new ones in the ratio of 1:100, 1:500, 1:1000, 1:2000... It was at this time that cards began to be played with old money. And these money cards existed in China almost until the end of the 9th century. In China, they still play cards that depict a general, two advisers, elephants, horses, war chariots, guns, and 5 soldiers. These 16 figures are colored red, white, yellow and green. Each suit is repeated twice, and thus the total number of cards in the deck is 128. Chinese cards have always been characterized by their shape: they are long and narrow.

Indian cards have a completely different shape; they are square and sometimes round. Indian cards usually had 4 suits, but there were also 12 colored cards, and each color had 12 cards, i.e. the number of cards in the deck was 144.

When did playing cards appear in Russia?

Presumably, maps appeared in Russia shortly after their appearance in Europe, in particular in Germany and France. They quickly penetrated primarily into the ruling circles. In any case, already under Anna Ioannovna and Elizaveta Petrovna, card games, especially in court circles, flourished, and card games reached their highest peak during the reign of Catherine II. It is reliably known that almost all of Catherine’s nobles played. Many of them put colossal fortunes at stake, while losing lands of tens of thousands of dessiatines and serfs. Quite often, peasants woke up in the morning to find out that, at the whim of the owner, they had been lost to another person and became his property. Household girls, especially beautiful ones, were sometimes put on the map for a colossal sum, and along with them, hunting dogs and thoroughbred horses were put on the line.

There is no exact information about when cards appeared in Russia. Some researchers believe that this happened quite late, approximately in the second quarter of the 9th century. However, this contradicts other obvious facts. Researcher Yu. Dmitriev reports that back in 1759, mechanic Pyotr Dumolin, who came to Moscow, demonstrated “moving maps” in one of the houses in the German settlement. And another Russian researcher A. Vyatkin dates the appearance of cards in Russia to an even earlier date, to the 7th century, and substantiates this with the well-known Tsarist Code of 1649, which prescribed that players should be treated “as with thieves,” i.e. thieves. According to the same Vyatkin, cards came to Russia through Ukraine, from Germany (“the local Cossacks whiled away their time playing cards”).

The fact that cards appeared in Russia simultaneously with their arrival in Europe is also evidenced by the fact that the Russians “kept in step” with the Europeans in mastering the secrets of many card games.

Video: History of playing cards