The blog Tirado/Thrown highlights these interesting playing cards from the Soviet Era depicting beautifully done indigenous Mesoamerican figures. What's the story? Tirado guesses:
Perhaps a bored KGB officer doing slopwork in 1950s Mexico City came across a deck of Aztec playing cards from Baraja Cuauhtemoc and passed over the naipes to an [acquiantance] at the state playing card factory in an act of [camaraderie].
More over there. * From English Russian, which says, "As it happens Mayan motives were popular in Soviet times in Russia."
