The Queen of Spades

Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, of course, was a great poet and writer. But besides everything else, he was known as a gambler and an avid card player. One day, the governor-general Dmitry Golitsyn told Pushkin a tale about his mother—Princess Natalia Borisovna. There were rumors that the “mustached princess”—Golitsyn, known for her passion for card games—knew three sacred cards that would bring victory to any, even the most unlucky, player. Pushkin, with his unique ability and talent to turn everything around him into art, immediately made Golitsyn the prototype of the countess in the well-known “Queen of Spades.” Thus, a work about Hermann was born—about the old countess and the secret of three cards that could make a person unimaginably rich or drive him mad overnight.