Leningrad Color Printing Plant - Maya Playing Cards

8/05/2026

Leningrad Color Printing Plant - Maya Playing Cards

INTRODUCTION & HISTORICAL CONTEXT

There is a special mystique surrounding an object from distant lands and times that, while not necessarily ancient, feel worlds away from our everyday reality. Such is the case with the item we are looking at today: a deck produced in Soviet Union during its final gasp, carrying the added—and almost paradoxical—intrigue of featuring a meticulously detailed Pre-Columbian theme.

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Founded in 1817 as the Imperial Playing Card Factory, this institution had a long history that survived the Bolshevik Revolution and, later, the collapse of the Soviet Union, maintaining a monopoly on playing card production for much of its existence. Following the establishment of the communist government, it went through several names before settling on Ленинградский комбинат цветной печати (Leningradskiy Kombinat Tsvetnoy Pechati), which roughly translates to the Leningrad Color Printing Plant.

One should keep in mind that the simplicity of our commercial "Brand and Model" formula loses its meaning in a society where marketing and private property (whether physical or intellectual) were absolutely inconsequential. In fact, Maya Playing Cards is an incomplete label; the tuck box displays no title, but rather a text nothing short of a manifesto: "Playing cards designed by the artist V. M. Sveshnikov on the theme of Ancient Mayan Culture".

Beyond revealing authorship, the box is a goldmine of bureaucratic data. Most notable is the specification АТЛАСНЫЕ (Atlasnye) or "Satin," which originally denoted a high-end finish by Soviet standards. It also details, among other things, the breakdown of the state-regulated price: 2 rubles for the deck and an extra 2 kopecks for the two pocket calendars included inside.

DESIGN ORIGINS & CHRONOLOGY

Finally, with all these Politburo-worthy formalities out of the way, we can get down to discussing today's deck.

Understanding how an artist in freezing Leningrad found inspiration in this ancient Mesoamerican civilization requires cross-referencing sources that occasionally conflict with each other. On one hand, records from the USSR Union of Artists suggest that Sveshnikov originally conceived these designs (or very similar ones) as a souvenir project for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, an event at which the Soviet delegation put significant effort into cultural representation. On the other hand, international catalogs such as The World of Playing Cards (WoPC) date the first run of the deck to 1975.

We can hardly view this as an outright contradiction, as this time gap might well exemplify the typical rhythm of Soviet central planning: an artistic research endeavor prompted by the 1968 Olympics that spent seven years navigating bureaucratic red tape to finally reach the Leningrad presses in 1975.

Furthermore, an academic factor accounts for this Russian fascination with Maya culture: Yuri Knorozov. In the 1950s, working from his study in Leningrad, this Soviet linguist and scholar managed to decipher the phonetic key to Maya glyphs (more precisely, logograms)—a feat deemed impossible in the West.

ICONOGRAPHIC & VISUAL ANALYSIS

Sveshnikov's work stems from this sense of historical pride, reflecting thorough preliminary archaeological research. In fact, such is his attention to detail that the ornamental borders along the sides of several cards are not mere filigree: they are faithful reproductions of inscriptions from the sacred Tzolk'in calendar.

The courts abandon any trace of the standard International pattern, morphing into Mayan nobles and deities. The Kings and Queens are draped in capes emulating jaguar pelts and wear elaborate regalia and adornments. Particularly striking is the subtle detail of their flattened foreheads—a faithful depiction of the cranial deformation that denoted high status.

Meanwhile, on the Ace of Spades, the suit symbol is framed by an elaborate, stylized Feathered Serpent (Kukulkan), while the Ace of Clubs features a circular geometric composition inspired by a traditional war shield, or chimalli. The set is rounded out by two Jokers that play on the duality of nature and man: a red one bearing a warrior-like appearance, and another rendered in blue lines associated with wind and water.

MATERIALS, FINISH & TECHNICAL DETAILS

To begin the physical analysis of the deck, it is essential to look at the indices, which forego international notation in favor of the Cyrillic alphabet. The breakdown and translation of these abbreviations are as follows:

Т – Туз (Tuz): Ace
К – Король (Korol): King
Д – Дама (Dama): Queen
В – Валет (Valet): Jack

In addition to the playing cards, the set includes two identical extra cards featuring a calendar for the year 1989. This utilitarian and promotional element matches the information printed on the tuck box, pinpointing the circulation of this particular copy to the late 1980s.

On the other hand, the "Satin" (Atlasnye) specification on the box accurately describes the finish of the cards, which conceals a rather curious manufacturing detail. When light strikes the surface at certain angles, a pattern of relatively regular vertical lines becomes visible, its distribution reminiscent of wood grain. While this effect is invisible in flatbed scans due to the lighting, it can be clearly seen in the picture below.

This finding was intriguing. At first, I considered whether it might be embossing or a linen-type treatment on the cardstock itself to create texture. However, in the absence of definitive documentation, the evidence points to a different cause: it is most likely a series of striations on a thick layer of protective lacquer—that is, drag marks left behind by mechanical rollers or brushes as the varnish was applied at the printing plant. This hypothesis is supported by two factors: to the touch, the cards feel remarkably smooth, and examination under a magnifying lens reveals that these "grooves" are merely superficial marks in the coating, lacking the depth to be imprinted into the paper core itself. Such a finish is, moreover, far more in line with what one would expect from industrial processes in the late Soviet era.