Photography Monday

Since it's Monday, the busiest day at my work, I can't be bothered to come up with anything quite coherent. So instead I present some images I found this morning. First is a link to some Ukrainian playing cards. As a kid my father was very adamant about forbidding my sister and me from playing cards. For some reason he saw the amusement of playing such games as "durak" (aka idiot/jerk in Russian), as potentially corruptible activity. Never mind that he himself liked to play cards, but like coffee, it was something that was reserved for the adult world. Good thing my grandparents let me play cards, and to some extent I still very much enjoy card games and wish I played/knew more games to play. The forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter I guess.

Which brings to the cards themselves, the playing deck of cards we had in Russia was very beautiful. They were mini works of art, I liked looking at the beautiful "damas" aka queens, elaborately dressed and with gorgeous faces, even the back of the cards had a beautiful design. It's not the same kind of cards you get at your local CVS for $2. Unfortunately, the card deck from my childhood has been depleted of half the cards, mysteriously some cards have gotten lost - I've looked into purchasing similar cards but the price has put me off (more than twenty dollars strikes me as a tad overpriced). So it was nice to see a collection of Ukrainian cards that reminded my of my family's deck. This one was my favorite:

This one was pretty neat too, although not as glamorous:

I also found this photo amusing for Monday morning, (from the same website):