The Most Serene Republic of Pyatingrad is a colossal, orderly nation, ruled by Fyodor Karamov with an iron fist, and notable for its zero percent divorce rate, public floggings, and frequent executions. The hard-nosed, cynical, humorless, devout population of 5.605 billion Pyatingradians are ruled with an iron fist by the dictatorship government, which ensures that no-one outside the party gets too rich. In their personal lives, however, citizens are relatively unoppressed; it remains to be seen whether this is because the government genuinely cares about its people, or if it hasn't gotten around to stamping out civil rights yet.

The relatively small, corrupt, socially-minded, well-organized government juggles the competing demands of Defense, Education, and Industry. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Novosibirska. The average income tax rate is 53.7%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The frighteningly efficient Pyatingradian economy, worth a remarkable 1,556 trillion Ducats a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. However, for those in the know, there is an enormous, deeply entrenched, fairly diversified black market in Arms Manufacturing, Information Technology, Tourism, and Beef-Based Agriculture. The private sector mostly consists of enterprising ten-year-olds selling lemonade on the sidewalk, but the government is looking at stamping this out. Average income is an amazing 277,648 Ducats, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

The overhead luggage compartment is often full, cigarettes are dead-cheap, parental permit paperwork presents perpetual problems to prospective procreators, and cassocked priests and choirboys believe that what happens behind closed doors stays behind closed doors. Crime, especially youth-related, is totally unknown. Pyatingrad's national animal is the lion, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Karamovism.

Pyatingrad is ranked 286,084^th in the world and 104^th in The Hole To Hide In for Most Primitive, scoring -474.51 on the Scary Big Number Scale.