This is the White Palekh, an alternate (third) version of the Black Palekh which was originally designed and printed in a very small edition by artist P. Bazhenov in 1937, and shown in the International Exposition in Paris, France, where it quickly sold out. The second edition of these cards was printed in 1967 by the Leningrad (St.Petersburg) factory of color printing in the USSR to commemorate 150-anniversary. The original name of these cards was \’Jubilee\’ but this edition became wellknown as Black Palekh. The White Palekh was first made in 1982, and this particular deck is from a 1985 run. Palekh refers to Russian miniature lacquer paintings on papier-mâché that first appeared around 1923 in a village called Palech and was based on a long local history of icon painting.