The Free Market Zone of Kalatchevia is a massive, socially progressive nation, ruled by President Drezvor with an iron fist, and remarkable for its rampant corporate plagiarism, otherworldly petting zoo, and pith helmet sales. The hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 3.039 billion Kalatchevians are rabid consumers, partly through choice and partly because the government tells them to and dissenters tend to vanish from their homes at night.

The minute, corrupt, pro-business government, or what there is of one, juggles the competing demands of Industry, Defense, and Education. It meets to discuss matters of state in the capital city of Bonetown. Income tax is unheard of.

The frighteningly efficient Kalatchevian economy, worth 718 trillion Petrocredits a year, is driven almost entirely by the private sector, which is broadly diversified and led by the Retail industry, with significant contributions from Information Technology, Arms Manufacturing, and Soda Sales. Average income is an amazing 236,532 Petrocredits, but there is an enormous disparity between incomes, with the richest 10% of citizens earning 1,507,052 per year while the poor average 15,298, a ratio of 98.5 to 1.

Prisons are filled with the cackles and sobs of a deranged inmate population, the only things written in the stars are arrest warrants for astrologers, oil rigs in winter are heated by contained oil slick fires, and the only crimes that get investigated are doughnut heists. Crime, especially youth-related, is all-pervasive, probably because of the absence of a police force. Kalatchevia's national animal is the Roadman, which is also the nation's favorite main course, and its national religion is Alcoholism.

Kalatchevia is ranked 534^th in the world and 10^th in Capitalist Paradise for Largest Retail Industry, scoring 45,618.76 on the Shrinkwrap Consignment Productivity Index.