Cash Register, Calculator & Money

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

— Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme

By 1976, these words were already a century old.

The communist project had existed for nearly sixty years, yet Soviet citizens were still waiting for the day money would become unnecessary. Until that distant future arrived, the USSR continued relying on cash to keep its economy running.

And that’s why every village store still needed a cash register, a calculator, and a drawer full of rubles.

Cash Register

The cash register is based on the real KIM-3-SP model.

It has long since broken down. Due to constant shortages of receipt paper, it can no longer print receipts.

Instead, it serves a much simpler purpose: safely storing your cash throughout the workday.

Calculator

The calculator is recreated after the Elektronika B3-02, released in 1975.

Its behavior closely follows the original machine. It works with whole numbers and decimals, displays calculations on an eight-digit display, and even preserves the fixed decimal position throughout calculations—just like the real device.

You might wonder how such a modern calculator ended up in an isolated village like Herota.

The answer is simple: central planning.

One of the recurring problems of the planned economy was that the government couldn’t realistically measure local demand. As a result, goods were often distributed where nobody needed them, while places that desperately required basic necessities received nothing.

So, through someone’s carelessness—or simple indifference—a brand-new calculator found its way to Herota, where people would have preferred medicine, food, or firewood instead.

Money

Every banknote in the game is based on genuine Soviet rubles issued in 1961 and still circulating in 1976.

Money is one of the most important resources in Selsoviet. At the same time, it’s often one of the least useful—because money cannot create what simply doesn’t exist.

• It won’t buy antibiotics that never arrived.
• It won’t restock empty shelves.
• It won’t convince the government to send more supplies.
• It won’t save your children.

Sometimes, having money simply means you can afford something that doesn’t exist.