- Sold Eclectibles
- Vintage Russian abacus
Vintage Russian abacus
Vintage Russian abacus
A vintage Russian abacus with its distinctive bead colouring and patterns, c early 20thC. In good original condition.
Dimensions: W45cm x H28cm
The design of the Russian abacus or schoty is based on a pair of human hands - each row has ten beads, corresponding to ten fingers. Each row has two sets of 4 beads of the same colour to the outside, representing the two sets of 4 fingers and the two inner-most beads of the same colour representing the two thumbs. It is operated by sliding the beads right-to-left. There is a single wire with 4 beads for quarter-ruble fractions. Older models have another 4-bead wire for quarter-kopeks, which were minted until 1916.
The Russian abacus is used vertically, with wires from left to right in the manner of a book. The wires are usually bowed to bulge upward in the centre, to keep the beads pinned to either of the two sides. It is cleared when all the beads are moved to the right. Likewise, the left bead of the thousands wire (and the million wire, if present) may have a different colour. The bottom-most row represents 1s, the next row up represents 10s, then 100s, and so on.
A vintage Russian abacus with its distinctive bead colouring and patterns, c early 20thC. In good original condition.
Dimensions: W45cm x H28cm
The design of the Russian abacus or schoty is based on a pair of human hands - each row has ten beads, corresponding to ten fingers. Each row has two sets of 4 beads of the same colour to the outside, representing the two sets of 4 fingers and the two inner-most beads of the same colour representing the two thumbs. It is operated by sliding the beads right-to-left. There is a single wire with 4 beads for quarter-ruble fractions. Older models have another 4-bead wire for quarter-kopeks, which were minted until 1916.
The Russian abacus is used vertically, with wires from left to right in the manner of a book. The wires are usually bowed to bulge upward in the centre, to keep the beads pinned to either of the two sides. It is cleared when all the beads are moved to the right. Likewise, the left bead of the thousands wire (and the million wire, if present) may have a different colour. The bottom-most row represents 1s, the next row up represents 10s, then 100s, and so on.
More background about the Russian Abacus
As a simple, cheap and reliable device, the Russian abacus was in use in all shops and markets throughout the former Soviet Union, and the usage of it was taught in most schools until the 1990s. Even the 1874 invention of mechanical calculator, Odhner arithmometer, had not replaced them in Russia and likewise the mass production of Felix arithmometers since 1924 did not significantly reduce their use in the Soviet Union. The Russian abacus began to lose popularity only after the mass production of microcalculators had started in the Soviet Union in 1974. Today it is regarded as an archaism and replaced by the handheld calculator.
The Russian abacus was brought to France around 1820 by the mathematician Jean-Victor Poncelet, who served in Napoleon's army and had been a prisoner of war in Russia. The abacus had fallen out of use in western Europe in the 16th century with the rise of decimal notation and algorismic methods. To Poncelet's French contemporaries, it was something new. Poncelet used it, not for any applied purpose, but as a teaching and demonstration aid. The Turks and the Armenian people also used abaci similar to the Russian schoty. It was named a coulba by the Turks and a choreb by the Armenians.