A Moscow Church Invites Visitors to Recall the Slavonic Numeral System
A Moscow church invites visitors to recall the Slavonic numeral system. Until the eighteenth century, numbers in Russia were written with letters marked by a stroke, the "titlo", above them, on a scheme similar to the Roman notation.
Numbers above 1,000 were written by placing a doubly crossed slanting line before the letter denoting the number of thousands.
Large numbers were written thus: Az (the letter a) in a circle was a "tma", or 10,000. Accordingly, Zemlya (the letter z) in a circle was 70,000.
Az in a dotted circle was a "legion", or 100,000.
Az in a circle of commas was a "leodor", or 1,000,000.
Az in a circle of crosses was a "voron", or 10,000,000.
Az in brackets above and below was a "koloda", or 100,000,000.
Yery (the letter y), outlined on three sides by perpendicular lines and with a cross above, was a "tma tem", that is, a billion.