Page "Abacus" Paragraph 35

The Russian abacus, the schoty ( счёты ), usually has a single slanted deck, with ten beads on each wire ( except one wire which has four beads, for quarter-ruble fractions.

This wire is usually near the user ).

( Older models have another 4-bead wire for quarter-kopeks, which were minted until 1916.

) The Russian abacus is often used vertically, with wires from left to right in the manner of a book.

The wires are usually bowed to bulge upward in the center, to keep the beads pinned to either of the two sides.

It is cleared when all the beads are moved to the right.

During manipulation, beads are moved to the left.

For easy viewing, the middle 2 beads on each wire ( the 5th and 6th bead ) usually are of a different colour from the other eight beads.

Likewise, the left bead of the thousands wire ( and the million wire, if present ) may have a different color.