Музей игральных карт, Playing cards museum in Petergof, Russia

The Playing Cards Museum occupies one of the Cavalier Houses on Pravlenskaya Street, 2, a building restored in July 2007. Its display holds more than 8,000 items from around the world, among them about a thousand rare decks, tarot and fortune-telling cards, and children's, educational and geographical cards. Original sketches for the Atlas deck by Adolph Charlemagne are kept here.

The museum was founded in 2007 and occupies one of the Cavalier Houses built in the late eighteenth century within Petergof's grounds. The building itself carries the architectural legacy of the estate where the card collection is housed.

The museum's name comes from its subject, and its core is the collection of Alexander Perelman, who gathered cards for over three decades. Among the exhibits are the original sketches for the Atlas deck by Adolph Charlemagne, a design unchanged in Russia for more than 160 years, and a revolutionary deck from the Cold War in which hearts are fists, diamonds stars, spades black flags and clubs a hammer and sickle.

The museum occupies a restored Cavalier House at Pravlenskaya Street 2, in Petergof south of Saint Petersburg. The building was restored in July 2007, shortly before the September opening, so the display rooms are modern while the exterior keeps its late-18th-century form. The collection is spread across several halls, and the rarest decks, such as the 16th-century examples, reward a slow pass.

Alexander Perelman spent over three decades assembling the collection and planned a museum shaped like a house of cards, with walls of cards and windows cut as suits; Soviet authorities made that impossible. In 2006 Petergof bought rare Tarot, a mica Indian deck and German "cards with pedlars" of 1960 at Christie's. Collector Stuart Kaplan attended the 2007 opening and donated dominoes carved by Napoleon's officers from bones found in prison soup.