1. The Museum of chess and porcelain in St. Petersburg displays unusual exhibits: chess kits made of porcelain from all over the world. In addition to the traditional black-and-white pieces, you can also see thematic designs. This chess set is dedicated to the defense of Sevastopol in the mid-XIX century.
2. This chess set from the same museum depicts the characters of Russian fairy tales. Thewhite pieces are bogatyrs, the tsar, a smith and the Tsarevna, while the black figures are all kinds of Slavic, evil-like mermaids and leshy (the wood spirit).
3. Birch is, of course, the main Russian tree! It’s no surprise that, in Russia, this tree, or rather birch bark, was used to make a chess set like this. Its creator - Vladimir Kapelko from Krasnoyarsk - made it in 1992. Now it’s on display at the Chess Museum in Moscow.
4. Kaliningrad, located on the shores of the Baltic Sea, is known for its amber crafts. These chess pieces were made of amber and silver. in the 2010s by the ‘Suveniry Baltiki’ (“Baltic Souvenirs”) company.
5. Chess set titled ‘Alexander I and Napoleon’ is dedicated to the 1812 Patriotic War and was made out of metal in the late 1990s. They are displayed at the All-Russian Museum of Decorative, Applied and Folk Art in Moscow.
6. The ‘Red and White’ chess set depicts the confrontation of the new post-revolutionary society (the Reds) with the old elite. They were made out of porcelain with gold painting in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in 1925. The author is ceramist Natalia Danko, who also participated in the decoration of the Teatralnaya metro station in Moscow. You can see these chess sets in the same museum.
7. Masters of Tobolsk, the ancient capital of Siberia, are known for their carvings out of mammoth bones. This chess set was made by prominent craftsman Terentiy Peskov in 1936. The pieces depict nomadic peoples: there is a whole family with their reindeer and chum (hut). They are also kept in the museum of arts and crafts.
8. This chess set, made out of silver with gold in the 19th century, is displayed at the 2013 exhibition in the Assumption Belfry of the Moscow Kremlin Museums.
9. These handmade chess pieces are painted in the ‘Gzhel’ style (this is one of the most famous Russian styles) with acrylic paints in the ‘Ruchnoy Lis’ (“Domesticated Fox”) workshop in Moscow.
The chessboard itself and the pieces are made of beech, with felt laid inside and on the bottom of the pieces.
10. These jeweled chess pieces were made out of blackened silver and gold by 25 masters of the St. Petersburg ‘ANNA NOVA’ jewelry house. They depict participants in the 1812 Patriotic War.
Among the figures, one can see Emperor Alexander I, Napoleon Bonaparte, Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov and General Mikhail Barclay de Tolly. In the role of pawns are soldiers of the Preobrazhensky Regiment and military musicians.
Each figure consists of about 150 of the smallest elements and is decorated with diamonds, rubies and sapphires. The chess set took three years to complete.
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