THANKS w/a poker face

[Alina Israeli]

Emily Fields wrote:

>And I've never found 'kresti' in any dictionary--only trefi--but then I
>never heard 'trefi' out of the people with whom I played cards.

Well, *kresti* is in a 4 volume dictionary "Slovar' russkogo jazyka" (1983,
vol. II, p. 127). KRESTI, not krestY, by the way. "Kresty" for me is only
the name of a prison.

In my experience, both *kresti* and particularly *vini* for *piki* were
used in the southern parts of Russia. BTW *vini* is also in the dictionary.

If I recall correctly (please correct me, if I am wrong), Rozenbaum had a
line something like "bubny, kresti, vini" in his immitation of Odessa
dialect.

Alina Israeli