How to Play Russian Solitaire

A challenging game where hidden cards drive the strategy and any face-up card can move with its entire fan. Build downward by suit in the tableau while mining for face-down cards to expose, and feed foundations as opportunities arise.

Setup

1. Deal 7 tableau piles with a special pattern: first pile gets 1 face-up card; second gets 1 face-down plus 5 face-up; third gets 2 face-down plus 5 face-up; continuing this pattern through the seventh pile with 6 face-down plus 5 face-up
2. Four foundation piles (one per suit) start empty and build up from Aces
3. No stock or waste pile—all moves come from the tableau

How to play

• Build foundation piles upward by rank in the same suit (Ace through King)
• Build tableau piles downward by rank in the same suit
• Move any face-up card or group of face-up cards to another tableau pile or a foundation; the entire stack on top of a moved card moves with it, even if cards aren't in sequence
• Cards automatically move to the foundations when no other card could be built on them; this behavior can be changed in Settings
• When a face-down card becomes exposed, flip it over and it becomes playable
• Only a King or a sequence headed by a King can start a new empty tableau pile

How to win

Objective: Move all 52 cards to the four foundation piles

You win when all cards reach the four foundation piles. You're stuck when you can't expose any more face-down cards and no plays remain.

Tips

• Prioritize moves that flip face-down cards—these almost always create new opportunities
• Move whole fans together when it helps expose hidden cards, even if the cards don't form a perfect sequence
• Play cards to foundations promptly when they open up space in the tableau for other moves

Play Russian free on Windows

CardTray is a free solitaire app for Windows that includes Russian alongside 300+ other games. It saves every move as you play, so you can close the window and pick the game up later, replay any deal, and take on a new Daily Challenge deal every day. Browse every game in the Game Gallery.

Related games

More games from the Yukon family:

• Triple Russian — Build up 12 foundation piles one suit at a time from a tableau of 13 piles dealt with varying amounts of face-down cards.
• Brisbane — A variation of Yukon with a staggered deal that lets you build the tableau regardless of suit, making it accessible and strategic.
• Double Russian — A two-deck variant where face-down cards are gradually revealed as you play.
• Dragon — This same-suit cousin of Chinese spreads the whole deck across seven tableau piles right away.
• Moosehide — A Yukon variant where tableau building requires different suits instead of opposite colors, and you can freely move any group of face-up cards together—creating puzzle-like rearrangement challenges.